The prevalence of CVID increases with age [5]. It can also be difficult to distinguish developing CVID from delayed maturation of the immune system in so-called transient hypogammaglobulinaemia, which is relatively common especially in younger children [6]. The majority of CVID patients present this website with recurrent bacterial infections

of the respiratory tract. In some patients with CVID, ultimately T-lymphocyte function deteriorates as well [7]. Gastrointestinal disease, lymphoproliferative disorders, autoimmune phenomena, and granulomatous inflammation are seen in subgroups of patients; in some patients these precede the recurrent infections [8]. Up to 73% of CVID patients develop chronic structural pulmonary complications. Although the incidence is lower, these pulmonary abnormalities are already

present in children with CVID [9, 10]. Patients are treated with life-long replacement of immunoglobulins, but even with adequate immunoglobulin substitution chronic lung disease will develop in the majority of patients [11]. The exact aetiology of CVID is unknown, but causative gene mutations have been reported in a few families, including CD19 [12], CD20, B cell activating factor receptor (BAFF-R), the inducible costimulator (ICOS), and CD80 genes [13] and around 10% of CVID selleck screening library patients show disease-modifying heterozygous amino acid substitutions in the transmembrane and calcium-modulating cyclophilin ligand (CAML) interactor (TACI) [13, 14]. Immunophenotyping of lymphocyte subpopulations is an important tool in the diagnosis Diflunisal of immunological and haematological diseases. When absolute numbers of lymphocyte subpopulations

fall outside predetermined reference ranges, this indicates possible disease. Lymphocyte subpopulations are also increasingly used to classify patients with CVID into subgroups with different clinical prognosis according to the composition of their B-lymphocyte compartment [15–17]. These classifications were mainly developed with data obtained in adults, however. Because of their maturing immune system, these classifications may not be equally applicable in children: age-matched reference values that have been determined for B-lymphocyte subpopulations in children show great changes in the composition of the B-lymphocyte compartment during development [18–26]. Not only do the absolute number of CD19+ B-lymphocytes show a massive expansion shortly after birth, the relative distribution between naive (CD19+CD27-IgD+), natural effector (CD19+CD27+IgD+), switched memory (CD19+CD27+IgD-) [18, 20, 23, 24, 26], and CD21low (CD19+CD21lowCD38low) B-lymphocytes [24], as well as class-switched plasmablasts (CD19+CD38+++IgM-) and transitional B cells (CD19+CD38++IgM++) [18] also change significantly with increasing age. The most important shifts in B-lymphocyte subpopulations take place in the first weeks to months after birth, but development continues until adulthood.