ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Immunol.

Sec. Autoimmune and Autoinflammatory Disorders : Autoimmune Disorders

Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fimmu.2025.1616541

This article is part of the Research TopicMicroparticles in Immune-Mediated Diseases: Roles in Autoimmunity, Autoinflammation, Sepsis, and ImmunodeficiencyView all articles

The performance of sCD25 and CTLs degranulation test for screening patients with primary hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis: a large-scale multicenter study in China

Provisionally accepted
Wenshuai ZhengWenshuai Zheng1Zhaoguang ChenZhaoguang Chen1Zongze WuZongze Wu1Zhenlan DuZhenlan Du2Xiaohong LiXiaohong Li3Beicheng LiBeicheng Li1*Shibin ZhuShibin Zhu1*Hongmei NingHongmei Ning4*
  • 1Hainan Hospital of Chinese PLA General Hospital, Sanya, China
  • 2Seventh Medical Center of PLA General Hospital, Beijing, China
  • 3Fourth Medical Center of PLA General Hospital, Beijing, Beijing Municipality, China
  • 4Fifth Medical Center of the PLA General Hospital, Beijing, Beijing Municipality, China

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Background: Hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis can be classified as primary HLH (pHLH) and secondary HLH. The early identify of pHLH can facilitate successful treatment. The rapid screening test greatly facilitated the diagnostic process of pHLH. However, there are rare studies to explore the ability of sCD25 and cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTLs) degranulation test to rapidly screen pHLH.We validated the accuracies of sCD25 and CTLs degranulation test in screening pHLH in 1224 clinically confirmed or suspected HLH patients through calculating area under the curve (AUC) and diagnostic parameters at optimal threshold.The sensitivities of sCD25 to identify pHLH with defects in cytotoxic pathway genes was 75.9%, with specificities of 57.3% and AUC of 0.640. The sensitivities of CTLs degranulation test to identify pHLH with defects in degranulation pathway genes was 87.0%, with specificities of 69.0% and AUC of 0.794. The sensitivities of combination of sCD25 and CTLs degranulation test to identify pHLH with defects in cytotoxic pathway genes was 90.0%, with specificities of 69.8% and AUC of 0.833.For identifying pHLH, CTLs degranulation test is more sensitive and no less specific than sCD25 and the combination of sCD25 and CTLs degranulation test can improve the accuracy further

Keywords: hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis, sCD25, Cytotoxic T lymphocytes degranulation test, Screening test, China

Received: 23 Apr 2025; Accepted: 16 Jun 2025.

Copyright: © 2025 Zheng, Chen, Wu, Du, Li, Li, Zhu and Ning. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

* Correspondence:
Beicheng Li, Hainan Hospital of Chinese PLA General Hospital, Sanya, China
Shibin Zhu, Hainan Hospital of Chinese PLA General Hospital, Sanya, China
Hongmei Ning, Fifth Medical Center of the PLA General Hospital, Beijing, 100049, Beijing Municipality, China

Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

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