Background: Childhood asthma is a chronic inflammatory disorder of the airways in children characterized by interaction between many cells of the innate and adaptive immune systems that interact with epithelial cells to cause bronchial hyper-reactivity. Annexin A1 (ANXA1) is a glucocorticoid-induced protein with multiple functions in the regulation of inflammatory cell activation. ANXA1 has anti-inflammatory effects by stimulating inflammatory cell programmed cell death and prohibiting eicosanoid synthesis.
Objectives: The aim of the current work was to evaluate Annexin A1 levels in the blood of asthmatic patients and to evaluate the relationship between Annexin A1 levels and clinical profiles in asthma.
Patients and Methods: This case-control study included a total of 100 children, 80 of them were asthmatic and 20 were apparently healthy children, attending at Pediatric Department, Zagazig University Hospitals.
Results: There is a statistically significant higher annexin A1 among cases than control group (3.3ng/ml & 2.6 ng/ml, respectively). There was a statistically significant difference between severity of bronchial asthma and serum Annexin A1 (higher annexin A1 values with increased severity of the disease). There was a statistically significant negative correlation between serum annexin A1 & FEV1, FVC and PEF (r = −0.27, p = 0.01, r = −0.31, p = 0.00 and r = −0.22, p = 0.05 respectively). Serum IgE had statistically significant positive correlation with serum annexin A1 among studied cases (r=0.254 p=0.023). ROC was done to detect a cutoff point, at which trying to detect asthma cases. We found that at a level of 2.65 we can diagnose asthmatic cases with sensitivity 70 %, specificity 65% with total accuracy 69%.
Conclusion: It could be concluded that serum annexin A1 can be considered as a possible biomarker for diagnosis, grading of asthma severity.