Thesis (Ph.D.) - Cairo University - Faculty of Medicine- Department of Pediatrics

Background: Activin A cytokine has grabbed attention regarding its role in inflammation and airway remodeling in asthma as it regulates airway inflammatory cells and airway remodeling. However, knowledge regarding its role in wheezy infants is limited. Patients and Methods: The present study was designed as a case control study that included two groups. First group, 40 Egyptian infants less than 2 years referred to the allergy clinic with history of their first or second attack of wheezing with mean age 14.925 ± 5.942 months with male to female ratio of 1.35, and second group, their matched control group (n=40). After comprehensive clinical assessment, blood samples were taken from the patients in order to assess serum activin-A, IgE and CBC measurements. Results: Patients had statistically significant higher activin A level compared to healthy controls (529.8 ± 358.4 vs 227.9 ± 63.4 pg/ml, p<0.001). Activin-A levels had a strong positive correlation with IgE levels (r=0.760) (p<0.001) and eosinophilic count (r=0.758) (p<0.001). Predictive ability of activin-A in discriminating wheezy infants from healthy controls showed that activin-A had high specificity of 95% and low sensitivity (55%). Mean serum activin A was significantly higher in patients who had history of recurrence of wheeze and hospital admission at follow-up. There were significant direct correlations between serum activin A and recurrence of wheezes, number of attacks and hospital admission within 6 months of the study at follow-up

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