There are various theories concerning the etiology of preeclampsia and eclampsia. According to one of these, the immunologic mechanism may play a role. The aim of this study was to determine whether or not T and B Iymphocytes and NK cells, which are important in cellular immunity, play a role in the development of this disease. We determined the percentage of the subgroups CD2, CD4 and CD8 of the T Iymphocytes, CD20 of the B Iymphocytes and CD56 of the NK cells in 26 preeclamptic pregnant women in their 3rd trimestir. All of these elements were olso investigated in 13 normal pregnant women. The statistical evaluations were done with the student-t-test. Only the differences in percentages of the CD2 and CD56 cells between the preeclamptic pregnant women and the normal pregnant women were found to be statistically significant (p < 0.01 and < 0.001, respectively). It was concluded that sig-nificantly decreased NK cells can be blamed in the pathomechanism of preeclampsia.

There are various theories concerning the etiology of preeclampsia and eclampsia. According to one of these, the immunologic mechanism may play a role. The aim of this study was to determine whether or not T and B Iymphocytes and NK cells, which are important in cellular immunity, play a role in the development of this disease. We determined the percentage of the subgroups CD2, CD4 and CD8 of the T Iymphocytes, CD20 of the B Iymphocytes and CD56 of the NK cells in 26 preeclamptic pregnant women in their 3rd trimestir. All of these elements were olso investigated in 13 normal pregnant women. The statistical evaluations were done with the student-t-test. Only the differences in percentages of the CD2 and CD56 cells between the preeclamptic pregnant women and the normal pregnant women were found to be statistically significant (p < 0.01 and < 0.001, respectively). It was concluded that sig-nificantly decreased NK cells can be blamed in the pathomechanism of preeclampsia.