Anti-HAV Antibodies In Beta-Thalassemia

Main Category: Liver Disease / Hepatitis
Article Date: 01 May 2008 - 5:00 PDT

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Thalassemic patients were found to present a higher prevalence of anti-HAV IgG antibodies than matched healthy subjects from the same geographic area. This finding is difficult to explain, but it may be attributed to the higher vulnerability of thalassemics to HAV infection and to passive transfer of anti-HAV antibodies by blood transfusion.

This study, performed by a team led by Associate Professor C Labropoulou-Karatza and Dr D Siagris, is described in a research article to be published on March 14, 2008, in the World Journal of Gastroenterology.

In Greece, the lack of Hepatitis A epidemics since the early 1980s and the improvement of socioeconomic and hygienic conditions over the last decade seem to have contributed to a decline in prevalence of anti-HAV antibodies. However, the authors observed that the majority of their beta-thalassemia patients were anti-HAV-IgG-positive.

In the view of the authors, the findings of this study are in contradiction with those of previous studies which showed a lower prevalence of anti-HAV antibodies in thalassemic patients.

In order to further reduce the incidence of liver infections in multitransfused thalassemic patients, the authors recommend active immunization for HAV in that population.

In the view of the reviewers, the strength of this study is surely due to the dimension of the population and the long history of the patients (10 years).

Further research, including testing the prevalence of anti-HAV antibodies in family members of thalassemia patients and in the frozen aliquots of donors' plasma, would confirm these findings.

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Article adapted by Medical News Today from original press release.
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Reference: Siagris D, Kouraklis-Symeonidis A, Konstantinidou I, Christofidou M, Starakis I, Lekkou A, Papadimitriou C, Blikas A, Zoumbos N, Labropoulou-Karatza C.
Prevalence of anti-HAV antibodies in multitransfused patients with beta-thalassemia.
World J Gastroenterol 2008; 14(10): 1559-1563 http://www.wjgnet.com/1007-9327/14/1559.asp

Correspondence to: Dimitrios Siagris, Department of Internal Medicine, Patras University Hospital, 4 Tertseti Str, Patras 26442, Greece.

About World Journal of Gastroenterology

World Journal of Gastroenterology (WJG), a leading international journal in gastroenterology and hepatology, has established a reputation for publishing first class research on esophageal cancer, gastric cancer, liver cancer, viral hepatitis, colorectal cancer, and H pylori infection for providing a forum for both clinicians and scientists. WJG has been indexed and abstracted in Current Contents/Clinical Medicine, Science Citation Index Expanded (also known as SciSearch) and Journal Citation Reports/Science Edition, Index Medicus, MEDLINE and PubMed, Chemical Abstracts, EMBASE/Excerpta Medica, Abstracts Journals, Nature Clinical Practice Gastroenterology and Hepatology, CAB Abstracts and Global Health. ISI JCR 2003-2000 IF: 3.318, 2.532, 1.445 and 0.993. WJG is a weekly journal published by WJG Press. The publication dates are the 7th, 14th, 21st, and 28th day of every month. The WJG is supported by The National Natural Science Foundation of China, No. 30224801 and No. 30424812, and was founded with the name of China National Journal of New Gastroenterology on October 1, 1995, and renamed WJG on January 25, 1998.

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Source: Jing Zhu
World Journal of Gastroenterology