2579

OXIDANT STRESS INDEX IN PROTEIN ENERGY MALNUTRITION

El Khayat HA*, Saleh ON*,Emam EK* and Eissa, S**

Pediatric* and Biochemistry** Departments, Faculty of Medicine, Ain Shams University, Cairo, Egypt

Background and objectives: The free radical theory postulated that kwashiorkor (KWO) results from imbalance between the production of free radical and their safe disposal. Hence, the present study was designed to evaluate both levels of ferretin and albumin as representative of oxidant and antioxidant markers in the serum of protein energy malnutrition (PEM) infants respectively before and after supervised nutritional rehabilitation. Also, we proposed ferretin / albumin ratio (F/Alb) as an oxidant stress index to be correlated to type and severity of the disease.

Subjects and methods: This study comprised thirty PEM infants (16 males and 14 females) with a mean age of 10.36±4.39 months and a cohort . of 10 healthy infants were chosen as controls. All study population were subjected to thorough clinical examination and categorised according to z-scores of weight for height (Wt/Ht), Measurement of total leucocytic count, serum alanine transferase (ALT), serum albumin, ferretin, F/alb and malnonaldehyde (MAD) were done for PEM cases before and after nutritional rehabilitation.

Results: The mean serum albumin and z-scores of Wt/ Ht were significantly lower in PEMinfants compared to controls. On the other hand, mean serum levels of ferretin, F/Alb, ALT and MAD were significantly higher in PEM infants Compared to controls. All those parameters were significantly evident in edematous versus non-edematous PEM infants. On nutritional rehabilitation, there was significant improvement in all parameters. The study also revealed that, z-scores of Wt/Ht, were negatively correlated with serum ferretin, F/Alb and MAD, while serum MAD was positively correlated with both serum ferretin and ferretin/albumin ratio.

Conclusion: it is concluded that F/Alb as a new index for oxidant stress signifies its value in determining the degree of oxygen free radicals as one of the major pathogenetic mechanisms in PEM morbidity. Also, it is important as a prognostic marker in PEM.