Immune Dysregulation after Cardiothoracic Surgery and Incidental Thymectomy Maintenance of Regulatory T Cells despite Impaired Thymopoiesis.pdfVIP

Hindawi Publishing Corporation Clinical and Developmental Immunology Volume 2011, Article ID 915864, 11 pages doi:10.1155/2011/915864 Clinical Study Immune Dysregulation after Cardiothoracic Surgery and Incidental Thymectomy: Maintenance of Regulatory T Cells despite Impaired Thymopoiesis Nancy J. Halnon,1 Paige Cooper,1 Diana Yu Hui Chen,2 M. Ines Boechat,1, 3 and Christel H. Uittenbogaart1, 2, 4, 5 1 Department of Pediatrics, David Geff en School of Medicine at UCLA, Los Angeles, CA 90095, USA 2 Department of Microbiology, Immunology Molecular Genetics, David Geff en School of Medicine at UCLA, Los Angeles, CA 90095, USA 3 Department of Radiology, David Geff en School of Medicine at UCLA, Los Angeles, CA 90095, USA 4 UCLA AIDS Institute, David Geff en School of Medicine at UCLA, Los Angeles, CA 90095, USA 5 Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center, David Geff en School of Medicine at UCLA, Los Angeles, CA 90095, USA Correspondence should be addressed to Nancy J. Halnon, nhalnon@ Received 28 January 2011; Revised 30 March 2011; Accepted 18 April 2011 Academic Editor: Stuart Berzins Copyright © 2011 Nancy J. Halnon et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Thymectomy is performed in infants during cardiothoracic surgery leaving many patients with reduced thympopoiesis. An association between immune disorders and regulatory T cells (Treg) after incidental thymectomy has not been investigated. Questionnaires soliciting symptoms of atopic or autoimmune disease and biomarkers were measured in children and adults with congenita