11949

Reliability of candida skin test in the evaluation of T-cell function in infancy

Article

Last updated: 03 Jan 2025

Subjects

-

Tags

Immunodeficiency
Immunology

Abstract

Background: Both standardized and non-standardized candida skin tests are used in clinical practice for functional in-vivo assessment of cellular immunity with variable results and are considered not reliable under the age of 1 year. We sought to investigate the reliability of using manually prepared candida intradermal test in the evaluation of T cell function in infants during their second year of life. Methods: Twenty-five healthy infants were tested with manually prepared intradermal candida test. Cultured lymphocytes were stimulated with phytohemagglutinin (PHA) and gamma interferon (IFN-γ) levels were measured in the culture supernatant of stimulated and non-stimulated samples using ELISA. Results: The enrolled infants were 14 to 24 months old (mean 19.2 ± 3.13 months). They were 17 boys (68 %) and 8 girls (32 %). Candida skin test was positive in 17 out of the 25 infants (68%). All infants showed increased IFN-γ levels after PHA stimulation (mean ± SD: 0.83±0.29 ng/ml) compared to basal levels (mean ± SD = 0.16 ± 0.16 ng/ml). The increase of IFN γ levels after PHA stimulation ranged from 1.54 to 38 folds. Infants with positive and negative candida tests showed comparable results in terms of clinical and immunological assessment except for weight percentiles for age that were higher among candida positive group. Conclusion: Candida intradermal test is a cost-effective simple test for evaluation of T cell function with 70 % sensitivity in healthy infants above the age of one year.

DOI

10.21608/ejpa.2017.11949

Keywords

Candida, IFN-γ, infants, intradermal, lymphocyte proliferation, PHA stimulation, T cell, tuberculin

Authors

First Name

Shereen

Last Name

Reda

MiddleName

-

Affiliation

MD, PhD FRCPE. Professor of Pediatrics and Pediatric Allergy/Immunology, Ain-Shams University, Egypt. Member of the European Society of Immunodeficiency (ESID)

Email

shereen.m.reda@gmail.com

City

-

Orcid

-

First Name

Rasha

Last Name

El-Owaidy

MiddleName

-

Affiliation

MD, PhD. Lecturer of Pediatrics and Pediatric Allergy and Immunology, Ain-Shams University, Egypt. Member, ESPAI, WAO, EAACI, ESID, ASID

Email

rasha2hasan@gmail.com

City

-

Orcid

0000-0002-5609-4160

First Name

Neama

Last Name

Mohamed

MiddleName

Lotfy

Affiliation

Department of Clinical Pathology, Ain Shams University, Cairo, Egypt

Email

-

City

Cairo

Orcid

-

First Name

Shaimaa

Last Name

El- Toukhy

MiddleName

A.

Affiliation

Department of Pediatrics, Ain Shams University, Cairo, Egypt

Email

-

City

-

Orcid

-

Volume

15

Article Issue

1

Related Issue

2194

Issue Date

2017-04-01

Receive Date

2017-04-30

Publish Date

2017-04-01

Page Start

25

Page End

30

Print ISSN

1687-1642

Online ISSN

2314-8934

Link

https://ejpai.journals.ekb.eg/article_11949.html

Detail API

https://ejpai.journals.ekb.eg/service?article_code=11949

Order

5

Type

Original Article

Type Code

643

Publication Type

Journal

Publication Title

The Egyptian Journal of Pediatric Allergy and Immunology

Publication Link

https://ejpai.journals.ekb.eg/

MainTitle

Reliability of candida skin test in the evaluation of T-cell function in infancy

Details

Type

Article

Created At

22 Jan 2023