Immunodeficiency in Down's syndrome: Relationship between presence of human thyroglobulin antibodies and HBsAg carrier status

Abstract

The relationship between the presence of hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) and antibodies to human thyroglobulin (HTgAb) has been studied in 110 subjects with Down's syndrome (DS) from 4 months to 50 years of age and in 122 controls carefully matched for sex, age and socio-environmental conditions. The overall percentage of HBsAg carriers was 22.7 in DS and 6.6 in controls and that of HTgAb-positive subjects was 41.8 in DS and 19.7 in controls. In DS the frequency of HTgAb-positive subjects was very high, even in the youngest age groups in which the percentage of HBsAg carriers was relatively low; the latter thereafter showed a marked increase with age. A positive association between the presence of HBsAg and HTgAb was found only in the oldest age group of DS subjects. It is thus concluded that in DS the high frequency of HTgAb cannot be attributed to chronic hepatitis B virus infection. On the contrary, the presence of HTgAb might well represent an early "marker" of immunodeficiency and increased susceptibility to infection with hepatitis B virus.

Age-Related Changes in Humoral and Cell- Mediated Immunity in Down Syndrome Children Living at Home

“…HBsAg positivity in DS was reported as 28% in a large institution versus 3% in non-DS subjects in the same institution compared with 1.5% in DS subjects in a small institution (19). A study comparing DS and non-DS subjects matched for age and residence (home or institution) found that the presence of antithyroglobulin antibodies was positively correlated with the presence of HBsAg (5). In our study, no child was positive for HBsAg including nine children with raised titers of thyroid microsomal antibody.…”

“…(Pediatr Res 22: 536-540, 1987) Repeated and chronic respiratory infections are an important cause of morbidity in children with DS (Trisomy 21) (1, 2). DS children are at increased risk for leukemia (3,4) and have a greater incidence of autoimmune disorders than the general population (5). This suggests that immunodeficiency may be an important component of DS (6).…”

Down Syndrome and Thyroid Disorders: A Review

“…Several studies Ugazio et al, 1977;Sutnick et al, 1972;Ferris et al, 1972;Hollingsworth et al, 1974), have demonstrated an increase in the presence of the Hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg; Australia antigen) in the Down syndrome population, compared to controls. Hollingsworth et al (1974) found HBsAg positive in 16 of 60 (27%) of their Down syndrome patients but in none of their learning disabled controls.…”

Cell-mediated cytotoxicity in down syndrome: impairment of allogeneic mixed lymphocyte reaction, NK and NK-like activities

“…Considerable clinical and laboratory evidence has demonstrated a combined deficiency of cell-mediated and humoral immunity in patients with Down syndrome (DS) [2,3,5,8,9,11,15,16,20,21,32,35,46,55,58,61,62,64]. In particular, abnormalities of cell-mediated immunity include morphological alterations of the thymus, decreased T-lymphocyte number and responses to mitogens and antigens as well as depressed activity of different thymus-dependent hormonal-like activities [4,10,13,17,22,29,33,34,43,49].…”