Qualitative evaluation of humoral immunity of β-thalassaemia patients by immunofixation test

Background: adaptive (humoral) immune system is one of the constituents of the immune system of
β-thalassaemia patients to prevent infections; many studies described a variation of immunoglobulin
levels. This study was designed for qualitative detection of abnormal band patterns, hence
immunoglobulin states, in the serum of β-thalassaemia patients.
Patients and method: The study was done as a cross- sectional study; it was performed from June
2014 to September of 2014 in Diyala province/ Iraq. Simple random sampling of patients of different
age groups from Thalassaemia Center was used to include patients in the study.
Immunofixation test was done at the lab of the researches at College of Medicine / Diyala University
using Interlab S. r. l. Immunofixation test. The effect of many factors, including hepatitis,
splenectomy, iron overload, and others, were evaluated.
Results: The total enrolled patients were 40, male gender comprises about 2 third of the enrolled
patients and most of the included patients were from age group below 15 years. Immunofixation tests
reveal no abnormal immunoglobulin bands were detected in all patients.
Conclusion: Patients with β-thalassaemia appear to have an intact humoral immune system,
whatever the criteria of the patients.