Detection of some antioxidant markers in saliva of patients with beta thalassemia major

Abstract EN

Background : Although evaluation and maintenance of antioxidant defence can be useful in protecting β-thalassemia patients from more serious complications of the disease, there are limited studies about assessment of antioxidant capacity in betathalassemic patients particularly in saliva.

Methodology:Thirty patients with β thalassemia major were involved in this study in thalassemia center / Ebn- Albalady hospital in Baghdad, and fifteen normal subjects with matched age and sex were also involved and considered as control group.

Age, gender, blood groups, BMI, secretory status, and antioxidant markers were determined in the saliva of normal and diseased subjects, however the status of HCV infection, liver and spleen are evaluated in beta-thalassemic patients.

Results: Frequency of non-secretors patients (43.3%) is significantly higher than those in control group (20%), while there is no significant difference in the distribution of ABO blood groups among subjects in both groups.

Serum ferritin is significantly elevated from (34 ± 4.4 ng/ml) in control group up to (4442 ± 875 ng/ml) in patients, while the level of all antioxidant markers in the saliva reveals nonsignificant differences between patients and control group except albumin marker which is significantly dropped in the saliva of patients in comparison with control.

Ferritin is negatively correlated with hepatomegaly (r = - 0.169), splenectomized (r= - 0.199), HCV-infected (r= - 0.095), and obese (r= - 0.159) patients.

On the contrary, albumin shows positively association with all these pathologic condition, and its level is non-significantly increased in patients with hepatomegaly (r = 0.031), splenectomy (r= 0.177), HCV infection (r= 0.133), and obesity (r= 0.170).

Conclusion:Non-secretory trait may participate in exacerbation the severity of complication in TM patients, and salivary level of albumin marker may be serve as a predictive value that reflect the antioxidant status