Lymphocytes in patients with different stages of schistosomiasis
The hematological profile can reflect the immune state to some extent. To evaluate the immune state, we first analyzed the blood routine data, which was shown in Table 3 , particularly WBC, lymphocytes, and neutrophils. It was observed that hemoglobin, red blood cells, and platelets in the advanced group were significantly less than that in the chronic group. In addition, the number of lymphocytes was less in the advanced schistosomiasis patients when compared with those with chronic schistosomiasis. And the percentage of lymphocytes was also lower in the advanced group (Fig 2 ).
Peripheral Lymphocyte Subsets Between Patients at Different schistosomiasis Stages
Flow cytometry was used to compare immune cell subsets in the peripheral blood in patients at different stages of schistosomiasis (Table 4 ). The percentage of NK cells in patients with schistosomiasis increased when compared with the health control group, however, no significant difference was observed in different stages of schistosomiasis regarding the percentage of NK cells (Fig 3D ). There were no differences in the percentages of CD3+T cells and CD8+T cells between the chronic group and the advanced group (Fig 3A,3B ). However, the percentage of CD4+T cells was lower in the advanced group, but the percentage of CD19+B cells was higher in the advanced group (Fig 3C ). Also, the number of immune cells is of great significance. We noticed that the number of CD3+T cells, CD3+CD4+T cells, CD3+CD8+T cells, and NK cells were less in the advanced group when compared with those in the chronic group (Fig 4A,4B,4C,4D ). Interestingly, no significant difference was detected in the number of CD19+B cells in different stages of schistosomiasis japonica (Fig 4E ).