Immunological investigations in prostatic pathology--a prospective study.

BACKGROUND: BPH with prostatitis represents one of the most common urological pathologies affecting most men. The etiology of both conditions remains at the discretion of the various assumptions.

OBJECTIVES: The body's cellular immune response in prostate adenoma is a less studied aspect which we have focused on, in this paper. The correlation with a wide range of information from specific investigations such as prostate-specific antigen (PSA) and total histopathology was the secondary aim of this work.

METHODS: The study included 31 patients who underwent surgery for prostate adenoma (TUR-P, simple prostatectomy) between 08.2013 and 03.2014. Patients presenting urinary tract infection were excluded from the study. Preoperative evaluation of the immunological examination consisted of lymphocyte immunophenotyping (T, B, NK cells) from peripheral blood performed by flow cytometry. Total PSA was performed in serum by enzyme immunoassay EIA.

RESULTS: In all forms of anatomoclinical BPH we found the presence of two major cellular changes: decrease of suppressor/cytotoxic T-cells and decrease of B cells. These deficits may confer an increased susceptibility to viral infection and tumor transformation. NK cells were grown in BPH associated with inflammation. PSA-prostate specific antigen values were grown at less than 50% of the patients in all clinical forms of BPH.