Infiltration of CD138-positive plasma cells in endoscopic material from patients with inflammatory bowel diseases

Introduction: CD138 (syndecan-1) expression hasbeen confirmed in plasma cells and normal tissues,particularly in epithelial cell types. As a cell surfaceprotein, CD138 regulates cell-cell and cell-matrixinteractions. CD138 may also regulate cellproliferation, migration, and cytoskeletal organiza-tion. In addition, positive CD138 plasma cells canalso be detected with extreme infiltration ininflammatory diseases such as chronic endometritis.Purpose: Investigation of the prognosticsignificance of the infiltration of CD 138 plasmacells in endoscopic material from patients withulcerative colitis (UC) and Crohn's disease (CD).Materials and methods: The study group included34 patients with ulcerative colitis and 8 patientsdiagnosed with CD. The expression of CD138 wasperformed by immunohistochemistry and assessedas a membrane-cytoplasmic color reaction inplasma cells localized in the lamina propria andglandular epithelium. We also examined theinsensitivity of general CD138-positive cells anddivided them into 4 groups: 0-absent, 1-mildincrease, 2-moderate increase, and 3-markedincrease.Results: The study group consists of 16 femalesand 18 males in UC and 2 female and 6 male ofCD. The UC lesions were mainly located in the rectum (19/34 cases), sigmoid (8/34cases), andothers (7/34 cases). Crohn's disease was observed inthe small intestine (3/8 cases), caecum (4/8 cases)and rectum (1/8 cases). The inflammatoryinfiltration consists of CD138+ cells in less than90% of inflammatory cells in UC (median 52.39%)and in less than 60% of inflammatory cells in CD(36.50%). The increase in CD138+ plasma cells inUC was mild in 3 cases, moderate in 10 cases andmarked in 15 cases. CD138+ plasma cells in UCwere found to correlate with Geboes score(R=0.404), CD15+ neutrophils (R=0.467) andCD15+macrophages (R=0.459). Plasma cells wereslightly increased in 2 cases and moderatelyincreased in 5 cases of CD. Infiltration of CD138+cells in CD sections was associated with age (R= -0.481) and crypt destruction (R=0.606). Loss ofCD138 expression in glandular epithelium wasdetected in 4/38 cases of UC and 1/8 cases of CD.Conclusion: Our results showed that infiltration ofCD138-positive plasma cells is closely related tothe degree of inflammation and architecturalchanges that could allow anti-CD138 treatment ininflammatory bowel disease.