The Formation of Clusters in the Patients` Immune Systems as Manifestation of the Adaptation Process

The immune systems of patients with urgent surgical pathology are affected by multiple damaging factors. The action of these factors leads to the formation of separate clusters, with centres at points that correspond to the optimal characteristics of the immune system. The distance from the centre of the cluster is closely related to the patient severity. We examined 442 patients with urgent abdominal pathology. Using the numbers of CD3+, CD4+, CD8+ and CD16+ lymphocytes, we found six clusters of immune status. Lymphopenia is compounded across the series of clusters, from the first to sixth. Adaptive loads were measured by determining the share of significant Spearman correlation coefficients in the central and peripheral quartiles of each cluster (SCS). SCS levels increased from the first to fourth clusters. The SCS reached critical values in the fourth cluster, after which it was reduced in the fifth and sixth clusters. SCS values also become comparable in the central and peripheral areas of the fourth cluster. This is coupled with increasing mortality in the fifth and sixth clusters. We suggest that the revealed features are the result of a “failure” in adaptation mechanisms and the emergence of distress in the fifth and sixth clusters. To prevent critical violations of the adaptive process, therapy should therefore be reinforced in cases similar to the severity of patients of the fourth cluster.