Studies on circulating soluble immune complexes of the liver disease. 7. Immune complexes in the clinical course and their ultracentrifugal analysis.

Immune complexes were investigated in the clinical course of 35 patients with the liver disease diagnosed by clinical and laboratory criteria, including the liver biopsy. Immune complexes were assayed by use of radio-labelled polyclonal rheumatoid and C1q as reactants with immune complexes. Although the highest amounts of immune complexes were determined in a few number of sera from patients with primary biliary cirrhosis, significantly higher amounts of immune complexes were observed in sera from patients with fulminant hepatitis, liver cirrhosis, chronic aggressive hepatitis (2B), lupoid hepatitis and hepatocellular carcinoma. However, no significant increase in immune complexes was seen in the clinical course of patients with chronic aggressive hepatitis (2A), chronic persistent hepatitis and acute hepatitis. Clinical follow-up studies of patients with higher amounts of immune complexes showed significant changes in the amounts of immune complexes in parallel with clinical, biochemical and immunological variables. The ultracentrifugal analysis demonstrated that immune complexes involved in the liver disease seemed to be larger than 19s in the size, since their concentration fluctuated according to the clinical course, although smaller complexes sedimenting at 7s and those between 8s and 19s were recognized without any significant changes in the clinical course.