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Circulating immune complexes in dermatologic disease

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Summary

Assays for circulating immune complexes have proven to be useful tools in investigating the pathophysiology of a number of diseases. Soluble immune complex-like material has been detected in the sera of patients with connective tissue, infectious, neoplastic, and renal diseases, as well as many others. In some instances good correlations exist between the presence and levels of immune complexes and clinical disease activity, while in others the association is less striking or non-existent. The importance of these findings is undergoing constant re-evaluation as more and more studies are performed.

In this chapter we have attempted to briefly outline some of the more widely used immune complex assays and to review the data on immune complexes in some dermatologic diseases. The work in almost all diseases must be viewed in light of the fact that none of the assays utilized are antigen specific, and that false positive results can occur in all systems. Additionally, the demonstration of immune complex-like material, even in a high percentage of patients with a given disease, does not necessarily mean that immune complexes play a primary role in the pathophysiology of that disease. Immune complexes may in some instances be formed secondary to tissue damage caused by other mechanisms.

In dermatologic diseases or diseases with a significant dermatologic component, good evidence exists that circulating immune complexes are at least partially responsible for the tissue damage seen in systemic lupus erythematosus and necrotizing vasculitis. In most other dermatologic diseases, the evidence is much weaker. Further in-depth studies of dermatologic diseases using sequential observations with several different sensitive assays and physicochemical characterization of the complexes are necessary to elucidate the importance of soluble antigen-antibody complexes in these entities.

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  1. Dermatology Branch, National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health, 20205, Bethesda, Md., USA

    Thomas J. Lawley & Russell P. Hall

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Lawley, T.J., Hall, R.P. Circulating immune complexes in dermatologic disease. Springer Semin Immunopathol 4, 221–240 (1981). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01892179

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