Investigation of plasma thiol/disulphide levels in children with acute immune thrombocytopenia

Oxidative stress may play a role in the pathogenesis of immune thrombocytopenia (ITP), but the role of dynamic thiol/disulphide homeostasis has not been studied. The objective of this study was to assess whether there is a change in thiol/disulphide homeostasis in children with acute ITP. A total of 40 children with acute ITP and 50 healthy age- and sex-matched controls included to this study. Serum total thiol and native thiol levels have been measured with a novel automatic spectrophotometric method. The amount of dynamic disulphide bonds and related ratios were calculated from these values. The average total thiol and native thiol levels of the patient group were found to be significantly lower than those levels of controls (P<0.01). However, intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIG) treatment with 1 g/kg/day prevented these reductions. Disulphide level slightly, but not significantly, depressed in ITP patients, but it recovered following IVIG treatment. We detected no marked changes in disulphide/total thiol, disulphide/native thiol, and native thiol/total thiol ratios between groups. These results are the first to demonstrate that thiol/disulphide homeostasis plays a role in ITP pathogenesis, and IVIG treatment can prevent the reduced thiol levels in children. Keywords: Immune thrombocytopenia, childhood, thiol, disulphide, oxidative stress