HAEMATOLOGICAL AND IMMUNOLOGICAL ALTERATIONS AMONG PROTEIN ENERGY MALNOURISHED CHILDREN: A COMPARATIVE STUDY

Monalisa Debnath, Dr. Aruna Agrawal and Dr. G. P. Dubey*

ABSTRACT

A comparative study was done to analyse the haematological and immunological profile of the protein energy malnourished children to that of the healthy ones. Following anthropometric assessment done on 100 randomly selected samples, a total of 92 children of age 3-12 years bifurcated as 43 healthy and 49 malnourished following WHO scaling were included and rest 8 children were excluded from the study. Further, the samples were subjected to haematological assessments including haemoglobin level, total serum protein and platelet count as well as immunological estimations which included serum IgA and CD4 cell count. The results were then statistically analysed using unpaired t test at 95% confidence interval. Haematological depression among malnourished subjects showed Hb level (10.94 ±1.28gm/dl, P<0.0001; 10.02±1.39gm/dl, P<0.0001), platelet count (236.94 ±28.53million, P<0.0001; 254.73±23.47million, P<0.0001) and total serum protein (6.87±0.79gm/dl, P<0.001; 5.61±0.25gm/dl, P<0.0001) among male and female subjects respectively to be lower than that of the healthy subjects. Immunological parameters including serum IgA was found significantly higher among the malnourished male (342.73±59.85gm/dl, P<0.0001) and female subjects (328.64±61.90gm/dl, P<0.0001) than detected among healthy ones. On contrary, CD4 cell count was recorded to be 639.59 ±133.90cell/μl (P<0.0001) and 625.36±118.73 cell/μl (P<0.0001) among malnourished male and female subjects respectively that was lower than the normal ranges. Thus, long-term nutrient deprivation with chronic protein deficits among malnourished children hinders immunoregulation phenomenon by increasing the serum IgA and depressing CD4 cell count whereas the haematological profile like haemoglobin level, total serum protein and platelet count were decreased remarkably from their normal ranges in the body.

Keywords: Protein Energy Malnutrition, immunodeficiency, undernutrition, haematological profile, immunological status.