Atef Abdelsattar Ibrahim H, Mohsen M, Salep Aziz Hanna B, Mahmoud D, Mohamed Abdelhamid El-Khashab K. Childhood asthma biomarkers including zinc: An exploratory cross-sectional study. World J Clin Pediatr 2024; 13(1): 87866 [PMID: 38596447 DOI: 10.5409/wjcp.v13.i1.87866]
Corresponding Author of This Article
Hoda Atef Abdelsattar Ibrahim, MD, Lecturer, Department of Pediatrics, Cairo University, No. 1 Gamaa Street, Giza, Cairo 12613, Egypt. hodaibrahim424@gmail.com
Research Domain of This Article
Pediatrics
Article-Type of This Article
Case Control Study
Open-Access Policy of This Article
This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
World J Clin Pediatr. Mar 9, 2024; 13(1): 87866 Published online Mar 9, 2024. doi: 10.5409/wjcp.v13.i1.87866
Childhood asthma biomarkers including zinc: An exploratory cross-sectional study
Hoda Atef Abdelsattar Ibrahim, Mona Mohsen, Boles Salep Aziz Hanna, Dina Mahmoud, Khaled Mohamed Abdelhamid El-Khashab
Hoda Atef Abdelsattar Ibrahim, Pediatric Clinical Nutrition Unit, Faculty of Medicine, Cairo University, Cairo 12613, Egypt
Hoda Atef Abdelsattar Ibrahim, Mona Mohsen, Boles Salep Aziz Hanna, Khaled Mohamed Abdelhamid El-Khashab, Department of Pediatrics, Faculty of Medicine, Cairo University, Cairo 12613, Egypt
Dina Mahmoud, Department of Clinical Pathology, Faculty of Medicine, Cairo University, Cairo 12613, Egypt
Author contributions: All the authors have read and approved the final manuscript. Conceptualization, material preparation, manuscript drafting/writing, editing, data interpretation and project methodology were performed by Atef Abdelsattar Ibrahim H; Resources were developed by Mohsen M, Salep Aziz Hanna B and Mahmoud D; The arrangement of diagnostic investigations and project administration were performed by Atef Abdelsattar Ibrahim H, Salep Aziz Hanna B and Mahmoud D; Supervision was performed by Atef Abdelsattar Ibrahim H, Mohsen M, Mahmoud D and Mohamed Abdelhamid El-Khashab K; Formal analysis was performed by Atef Abdelsattar Ibrahim H.
Institutional review board statement: The study was approved by the Research Ethics Committee of the Faculty of Medicine, Cairo University, No. MS-587-2021.
Informed consent statement: All patients gave informed consent.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest.
Data sharing statement: The dataset of this study is available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.
STROBE statement: The authors have read the STROBE statement, and the manuscript was prepared and revised according to the STROBE statement.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Received: August 30, 2023 Peer-review started: August 30, 2023 First decision: November 1, 2023 Revised: November 11, 2023 Accepted: November 29, 2023 Article in press: November 29, 2023 Published online: March 9, 2024 Processing time: 189 Days and 10 Hours
Abstract
BACKGROUND
Childhood bronchial asthma (BA) is a chronic inflammatory respiratory disease. Nutritional conditions, including zinc deficiency, can affect such allergic disorders.
AIM
To outline the difference in serum zinc levels between asthmatic children and healthy controls.
METHODS
A cross-sectional study was carried out at Children’s Hospital, Cairo University, investigating serum zinc levels in children with BA (n = 40) and healthy children (n = 21). Other markers included serum ferritin, iron, hemoglobin (Hb), and immunoglobulin E (IgE) levels. Independent t-tests and Mann-Whinny tests were used for comparisons. The Kruskal-Wallis test was applied to compare serum ferritin and IgE levels with regard to asthma severity. Spearman's rank correlation was performed to explore the relationship between serum ferritin levels and both iron and Hb levels in asthmatic children.
RESULTS
Children with BA had higher levels of zinc, yet the difference was not significant (P = 0.115). Serum ferritin and IgE levels were significantly higher in asthmatic children (P = 0.006 and 0.001, respectively), yet their levels did not differ significantly by severity (P = 0.623 and 0.126, respectively). There was a nonsignificant weak correlation between serum ferritin levels and both serum iron and Hb levels.
CONCLUSION
Serum zinc levels do not seem to differ between asthmatic children and healthy children. Serum ferritin levels may be a marker of asthma control. Serum IgE levels are not markers of asthma severity.
Core Tip: Serum zinc levels were higher in asthmatic children than in nonasthmatic children. However, the difference was not significant. Serum ferritin levels were significantly higher in asthmatic children, which may be due to its immunosuppressive properties. Serum ferritin should not be considered in the diagnosis of iron deficiency anemia in asthmatic children. Serum immunoglobulin E should not be applied to diagnose the severity of childhood asthma. Further studies that track biomarkers such as ferritin during asthma progression are needed.
