Blood, 15 February 2003, Vol. 101, No. 4, pp. 1660-1660
CORRESPONDENCE
To the editor:
Helicobacter pylori and idiopathic thrombocytopenic
purpura in children
Helicobacter pylori gastritis has been associated
with autoimmune diseases, including idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura (ITP).1,2 It is well known that the prevalence of
H pylori infection is greatly variable from country to
country, has decreased over the last decades in industrialized
countries, and that its frequency increases with age. Recently, Veneri
et al3 suggested that the HLA class II allele pattern
might identify groups of ITP patients with different incidences of
H pylori infection and, possibly, with different
pathogeneses of thrombocytopenia. Indeed, eradication of H
pylori in adults has been associated with platelet recovery in
patients from Italy1,2,4 and from Japan5 but
not in patients from Spain.6 To our knowledge, no H
pylori data have been published from pediatric patients with ITP.
In children, ITP differs from that in adults in terms of clinical picture and mechanisms of thrombocytopenia.
We therefore studied the prevalence of H pylori infection in
a group of 17 children with chronic ITP. The patients had normal or
increased megakaryocytosis in the bone marrow despite isolated thrombocytopenia that had lasted at least 6 months. Of the
patients, 10 were girls and 7 were boys. Median age at the time of
diagnosis was 3.8 years (range, 0.3-14.3 years), and median duration of thrombocytopenia at the time of the study was 3.9 years (range, 0.6-14.5 years). During a routine outpatient visit of the 17 consecutive patients, after informed consent, serum H pylori
IgA and IgG class antibodies were measured by a locally validated
enzyme immunoassay,7 and in patients older than 5 years
(n = 12), a 13C urea breath test (Diabact UBT) also was
performed. The 13C enrichment in the expired breath was
measured by automated breath 13C analysis by means of
continuous flow-isotope ratio mass spectrometry.8 Delta-over-baseline (DOB) values were analyzed. DOB over
2.2
was considered positive. If any abnormalities were
noted, H pylori antigen enzyme immunoassay was done in stool specimens.
H pylori infection was not diagnosed in any of the 17 patients. One patient had borderline titers of class IgG antibodies in
the serum, but class IgA antibodies were negative and no antigen was
detected in the stools. Two other patients had positive breathing tests
(DOB 17.9 and 9.5), but their serum antibodies test as well as stool antigen tests were negative.
In recent studies from Finland, an H pylori seroprevalence
of 5.6% was found in children younger than 19 years9, and
seroprevalence of 30% to 40% was found in adults.10 The
absence of infection signs in our pediatric ITP patients suggests that
H pylori may not be enriched in this Finnish subgroup of
patients. This is in contrast to findings in adult ITP patients, in
which an increased prevalence of H pylori has been published
in many different populations.1-6 In France, where the
infection rate is low, no association between the 2 conditions has been
found.11 No such data on adult ITP patients are available
from Finland.
ITP is an autoimmune disorder with different pathogenetic and clinical
features in children and adults. Although H pylori infection
can well be important in the pathogenesis of thrombocytopenia in some
adults with ITP, this may not be the case in children, especially in
the Finnish population with a low prevalence of H pylori
infection.
Jukka Rajantie and Timo Klemola
Correspondence: Jukka Rajantie, Department of Pediatrics,
Helsinki University Central Hospital, Jorvi Hospital, FIN-02740 Espoo,
Finland; e-mail: jukka.rajantie{at}hus.fi
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