Immune cell profiles of patients with interstitial cystitis/bladder pain syndrome.

Interstitial cystitis/bladder pain syndrome (IC/BPS) is a disorder characterized by bladder pain upon filling which severely affects quality of life. Clinical presentation can vary. Local inflammatory events typify the clinical presentation of IC/BPS patients with Hunner lesions (IC/BPS-HL).

It has previously been proposed that B cells are more prevalent in HL, but understanding their exact role in this environment requires a more complete immunological profile of HL. We characterized immunological dysfunction specifically in HL using immunohistochemistry. We detected significantly more plasma cells (50× increase, p < 0.0001), B cells (28× increase, p < 0.0001), T cells (3× increase, p < 0.0001), monocytes/macrophages (6× increase, p < 0.0001), granulocytes (4× increase, p < 0.0001), and natural killer cells (2× increase, p = 0.0249) in IC/BPS patients with HL than in unaffected controls (UC). Patients with IC/BPS-HL also had significantly elevated urinary levels of IL-6 (p = 0.0054), TNF-α (p = 0.0064) and IL-13 (p = 0.0304) compared to patients with IC/BPS without HL (IC/BPS-NHL). In contrast, IL-12p70 levels were significantly lower in the patients with HL than in those without these lesions (p = 0.0422). Different cytokines were elevated in the urine of IC/BPS patients with and without HL, indicating that different disease processes are active in IC/BPS patients with and without HL. Elevated levels of CD138+, CD20+, and CD3+ cells in HL are consistent B and T-cell involvement in disease processes within HL.

Journal of translational medicine. 2022 Feb 21*** epublish ***

Robert M Moldwin, Vishaan Nursey, Oksana Yaskiv, Siddhartha Dalvi, Eric J Macdonald, Michael Funaro, Chengliang Zhang, William DeGouveia, Marina Ruzimovsky, Horacio R Rilo, Edmund J Miller, Souhel Najjar, Inna Tabansky, Joel N H Stern

The Smith Institute for Urology, Northwell Health, 450 Lakeville Road New Hyde Park, Lake Success, NY, USA., Department of Neurology, Donald and Barbara Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra/Northwell, Hempstead, NY, USA., Department of Pathology, Donald and Barbara Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra/Northwell, Hempstead, NY, USA., Institute of Molecular Medicine, The Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research, Manhasset, NY, USA., Department of Surgery, Donald and Barbara Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra/Northwell, Hempstead, NY, USA., RDS2 Solutions, Stony Brook, NY, USA., Department of Neurology, Lenox Hill Hospital, New York, NY, USA., The Smith Institute for Urology, Northwell Health, 450 Lakeville Road New Hyde Park, Lake Success, NY, USA. .

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