The effect of smoking on peripheral blood lymphocyte subsets and pulmonary function tests of patients having chronic renal failure

The sum of cells, tissues and molecules defending body against infections is called immune system. Nowadays we have proof showing that smoking suppresses the immune system. It is known that chronic renal failure also effects the immune system. However number of researches investigating the effect of both chronic renal failure and smoking are limited. In our study, we planned to investigate whether smoking effects the diminished response of immune system in patients having chronic renal failure. In this study we compared peripheric blood lymphocyte subsets in smoking patients to non smoking ones all having chronic renal failure. We also aimed to perform Fagerström Test for Nicotine Dependence and evaluate its correlation with lymphocyte subsets count among patients who are current smokers. There were 126 patients followed for chronic renal failure in our study. According to their smoking habits, patients were divided into 2 groups; smokers and non-smokers. Average age of 53 smoking patients was calculated as 53.2±1.5 years, while 73 non-smoking patients had an average of 59.2±2.2 years. The mean duration of smoking in smoker group was 30.7±2.7 pack-years. We found that the percentage of CD16-56 (NK cells) and %lymphocyte was significantly low among smoking group in our study (p<0.05). We compared lymphocyte subset panel to pack-year among 126 participating patients and found that the rate of CD16-56 decreases as the smoking duration extends. Consequently, our study revealed that smoking suppresses immune system measured by lymphocyte subsets in patients with chronic renal failure as in healthy smokers. According to our findings patients having chronic renal failure, where infection is the most important reason of mortality and morbidity, must be questioned for smoking and referred to smoking cessation clinics. We believe that our research which is a relatively broad series according to analysis of 126 chronic renal failure patients will make contribution to current literatüre. Knowing the cumulative effects of both smoking and existance of chronic renal failure on immune system will provide important developments about stating new treatment approaches in the future.