Recent Thymic Emigrants: A New Method for Thymus Function Evaluation

Abstract

The factors affecting T cells reconstitution post haematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) are not well characterised. We carried out a prospective analysis of naive T cell reconstitution in 26 HSCT recipients before and during the first six months post transplantation. We analysed the recent thymic emigrants (RTEs) and thereby monitored thymic output and evaluated the thymus function using a new and easy method in comparing to the previous used methods. We found that the thymic-dependent pathway for the T cells reconstitution was activated from the second month in the majority of patients with increasing the numbers of naive T cells. We also compared the RTEs values between the patients with and without adenovirus reactivation, and we found that the patients with adenovirus reactivation had higher numbers of naive T cells on the six month post HSCT.