Tehran University Medical Journal (May 2014)
An assessment of Toxoplasmosis antibodies seropositivity in children suffering Autism
Abstract
Background: Toxoplasma gondii, is a mandatory intracellular protozoa, that many people worldwide are infected with. In children, the infection enters central nervous system and leads to inflammation of the gray matter. Autism, is a complex develop-mental disorder, altering social communication, with unknown origin. Neuropathologi-cal changes in autism are the same as those occurred in brain toxoplasmosis. The objective of this survey was to evaluate positive serology of toxoplasma gondii, in autistic children. Methods: This case-control study was done on 3-12 years old children, referring to the neurology and psychiatry sub-special clinics of Baqiyatallah hospital and also autistic children of Omid-e Asr and Navid-e Asr general rehabilitation centers in Tehran, Iran. The study performed at 2012-2013. Forty autistic children were placed in the case group and 40 children, suffering from no neuropsychiatric disease or other ones, were placed in the control group. A folder, containing demographic data, type of the disor-der, onset of diagnosis and child characteristics at birth, such as time of birth (preterm/ term) fulfilled for each child. Sampling was done with 5 ml blood, for determining IgM and IgG antibody levels against toxoplasma gondii, using ELISA method. Data ana-lyzed by the software SPSS ver. 17 and descriptive and analytic analysis were done, us-ing central and dispersion indexes and also chi-Square test. Results: The autistic group contained 34 boys and 6 girls (85 and 15 percent respectively), with the average age of 6 (±2.71) years old [minimum of 2.33 and maximum of 12]. The average age at the time of diagnosis was 4.01 (±1.87) years old. 87. The non-autistic group contained 17 boys and 23 girls (42.5 and 57.5 percent respectively), with the average age of 5.67 (±3.09) years old [minimum of two and maximum of 12]. IgM and IgG serology of all autistic children were negative, while in non-autistic group, 2.5 percent (1 child) were positive and 97.5 percent (39 ones) were negative. There were no statistically significant difference among these two groups according to the serology results. (P=0.31). Conclusion: There was no statistically significant difference in comparing positive se-rology of toxoplasmosis, between the two groups. However, to obtain a perfect result, a larger sample size are required.
