Effect of erythromycin on activated lymphocytes in the peripheral blood of the patient with Sjögren's syndrome accompanied with lung involvement

Abstract

We evaluated the effect of low-dose long-term erythromycin (EM) therapy (600 mg/day) on activated lymphocytes in the peripheral blood of the patient with Sjögren's syndrome accompanied with lung involvement. Before and after EM therapy, we analysed the subsets of peripheral lymphocytes using two-colour analysis by FACScan. Used monoclonal antibodies were Leu 2a, Leu 3a, Leu 4 and Leu HLA-DR. After 9 months of EM therapy, the percentages of activated Leu 2a positive cells, Leu 3a positive cells, and Leu 4 positive cells significantly decreased.
These results might be useful to clarify the mechanism of low-dose long-term EM therapy against diffuse panbronchiolitis.