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Salivary Immunoglobulin A and Albumin: Values in Children Presenting with Atypical Mycobacterial Lymphadenitis Compared with Normal Controls *
Author(s) -
Thornber E.,
Turner K. J.,
Masters P. L.
Publication year - 1974
Publication title -
australian and new zealand journal of medicine
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.596
H-Index - 70
eISSN - 1445-5994
pISSN - 0004-8291
DOI - 10.1111/j.1445-5994.1974.tb03166.x
Subject(s) - medicine , saliva , normal values , immunoglobulin a , antibody , albumin , gastroenterology , immunoglobulin g , immunology
Summary: Parotid saliva was collected from 159 normal children with ages ranging from four to 12 years, from 58 children (patients) presenting with atypical mycobacterial lymphadenitis and from 39 of the patients' parents. Immunoglobulin A (IgA) and albumin values were determined in each specimen using a single radial diffusion method followed by radioactive labelling. The values for the control children showed no systematic variations with age or sex, and frequency distributions plotted logarithmically approximated to ‘normal’curves. The mean and standard deviation were 22 ± 14 μ g/ml for IgA, and 0.26 ± 0.19 μ g/ml for albumin, but correlation between these two parameters was low (r = 0.24). The frequency distributions of salivary albumin values for the patients and their parents also approximated to ‘normal’curves, but the curve for the patients' salivary IgA values showed an excess of extreme values compared with the controls. Although girls predominated among the patients (35 girls to 23 boys) there were fewer girls with silavary IgA values below 10 μ g/ml(7 girls to 11 boys) and many more with values above 30 μ g/ml (12 girls to 3 boys). One Girl and three boys had both serum and silavary IgA values less than two standard deviation below the geometric means, but the correlation between serum and salivary IgA values in the order patients and in 22 control children was low. It is concluded that children presenting with superficial mycobacterial lymphadenits include more than one group aith high normal IgAs in which girls heavily predominate.