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When I posted my overview of the thymus gland (see

http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/CGI/wa.exe?A2=ind0410c&L=celiac&P=478
http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/CGI/wa.exe?A2=ind0410c&L=celiac&P=588 )

I was alarmed that thymectomies were and are routinely performed during
cardiothoracic surgery now that it is known the thymus continues to
function thoughout life.  I am now even more alarmed that such thymectomies
were and, apparently, are still performed in children when the thymus is
even more active and critical to immune system development.  The medical
profession should never treat any part of the human anatomy with such
disdain, especially if medical science does not fully understand its
function.  Such disdain, lack of knowledge and lack of education
contributes to such ineptitudes of the medical profession as
overprescribing acid-suppressors and underdiagnosing celiac disease.
Patients and parents must truly educate themselves first before allowing
themselves to put their lives and health and trust and faith in the hands
of the pharmaceutical and medical communities.  (I still question the
wisdom of my parents allowing my tonsils to be removed as a child when
tonsillectomies were routine.)

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Pediatr Res. 2004 Nov 5 [Epub ahead of print]

Thymic Function and Impaired Maintenance of Peripheral T Cell Populations
in Children with Congenital Heart Disease and Surgical Thymectomy.

Halnon NJ, Jamieson B, Plunkett M, Kitchen CM, Pham T, Krogstad P.

Department of Pediatrics, Department of Medicine, Department of Surgery,
and Department of Molecular and Medical Pharmacology, David Geffen School
of Medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles,
California, 90095, and UCLA School of Public Health, Los Angeles,
California, 90095.

The thymus begins involution in childhood and historically it was thought
to be nonfunctional by adulthood, thus presenting no contraindication to
the routine practice of thymectomy during cardiothoracic surgery. More
recent data has suggested, however, that the thymus remains active into
adulthood and is responsible for the low-level production of normal T
cells. We hypothesize, therefore, that incidental thymectomy during
cardiothoracic surgery in infancy causes long-term changes in the cellular
immune system. To investigate this hypothesis, we quantified peripheral T-
cell subsets and T-cell recombination excision circles in children with
congenital heart disease to measure the impact of cardiothoracic surgical
procedures and thymectomy performed during a period of immunologic
development. We found that cardiothoracic surgical procedures, especially
if they include thymectomy, impair T-cell production and produce long-term
decreases in total lymphocyte count and CD4(+) and CD8(+) T-cell subsets,
suggesting that long-term maintenance of lymphocyte populations is
disturbed.

PMID: 15531736 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]

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