Journal
PEDIATRIC INFECTIOUS DISEASE JOURNAL
Volume 27, Issue 9, Pages 800-807Publisher
LIPPINCOTT WILLIAMS & WILKINS
DOI: 10.1097/INF.0b013e31816ffc0e
Keywords
hepatitis C virus; mother-to-child transmission; lymphocytes; neutrophils; gender
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Funding
- MRC [G106/1159] Funding Source: UKRI
- Medical Research Council [G106/1159] Funding Source: researchfish
- Medical Research Council [G106/1159] Funding Source: Medline
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Background: Investigation of immunologic values in children vertically exposed to hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection could help explain the higher risk of infection in girls and indicate mechanisms of spontancous viral clearance and possible long-term immunologic effects. Methods: Prospective study of children born to HCV-infected women. Lymphocyte and neutrophil measurements were age-standardized using the LMS method (this summarizes the changing age distribution of a variable). Associations between maternal and infant characteristics and lymphocyte and neutrophil z-scores were quantified using linear regression allowing for repeated measures. Results: HCV-infected children, girls, and those born to HCV/human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-coinfected women had significantly higher lymphocyte z-scores than HCV-uninfected children, boys, and children born to HCV-only-infected women, respectively. Peak absolute lymphocytes were significantly lower for infected children with evidence of viral clearance than for persistently infected children. Girls also had significantly higher neutrophil z-scores than boy but HCV-infected children had significantly lower neutrophil z-scores than uninfected children. Conclusions: The gender associations are in line with those observed among children born to HIV-infected women, suggesting general gender-based differences in response to infection. Age-related function in other pediatric diseases and these results suggest that gender-specific reference values should be used at least for the first 2 years of life.
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