Common variable immunodeficiency and idiopathic primary hypogammaglobulinemia: two different conditions within the same disease spectrum

Gertjan J Driessen, Virgil A S H Dalm, P Martin van Hagen, H. Anne Grashoff, Nico G. Hartwig, Annemarie M C van Rossum, Adilia Warris, Esther de Vries, Barbara H Barendregt, Ingrid Pico, Sandra Posthumus, Menno C van Zelm, Jacques J M van Dongen, Mirjam van der Burg

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50 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Patients with hypogammaglobulinemia who do not fulfill all the classical diagnostic criteria for common variable immunodeficiency (reduction of two immunoglobulin isotypes and a reduced response to vaccination) constitute a diagnostic and therapeutic dilemma, because information concerning the clinical and immunological characteristics of these patients with idiopathic primary hypogammaglobulinemia is not available. In 44 common variable immunodeficiency and 21 idiopathic primary hypogammaglobulinemia patients we determined the clinical phenotypes and performed flow cytometric immunophenotyping to assess the pathophysiological B-cell patterns and memory B-cell subset counts. Age-matched B-cell subset reference values of 130 healthy donors were generated. Severe pneumonia and bronchiectasis occurred at similar frequencies in idiopathic primary hypogammaglobulinemia and common variable immunodeficiency. Although IgG levels were only moderately reduced compared to common variable immunodeficiency, 12 of 21 idiopathic primary hypogammaglobulinemia patients required immunoglobulin replacement. Non-infectious disease-related clinical phenotypes (autoimmune cytopenia, polyclonal lymphocytic proliferation and persistent unexplained enteropathy) were exclusively observed in common variable immunodeficiency and were associated with early peripheral B-cell maturation defects or B-cell survival defects. T-cell dependent memory B-cell formation was more severely affected in common variable immunodeficiency. Furthermore, 14 of 21 idiopathic primary hypogammaglobulinemia patients showed normal peripheral B-cell subset counts, suggestive for a plasma cell defect. In conclusion, idiopathic primary hypogammaglobulinemia patients who do not fulfill all diagnostic criteria of common variable immunodeficiency have moderately decreased immunoglobulin levels and often a normal peripheral B-cell subset distribution, but still suffer from serious infectious complications.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1617-1623
Number of pages7
JournalHaematologica
Volume98
Issue number10
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Oct 2013

Bibliographical note

The authors would like to thank Mrs. S. De Bruin-Versteeg for assistance with preparing the figures; Mrs. P van Jaarsveld-Bakker, Mrs. M.W. van der Ent and Mrs. E. van Mastrigt for assistance with collecting blood samples and/or clinical data; Mrs. J. van Rhee-Brinkhorst and Mrs. L. Winter of the department of obstetrics of the ErasmusMC for the collection of the cord blood samples.

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