Detection of hepatitis B surface antigen in St. Vincent and The Grenadines 1989-1993

Hepatitis B, formerly called serum hepatitis, is a disease of worldwide importance because of the extent of morbidity and mortality it inflicts on its victims, and the demands it imposes on the economic and medical resources of a country. The hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) is the first serologic marker to appear following a hepatitis B viral infection. As the condition improves clinically, the titre falls and subsequently disappears (usually within six months). If the titre persists after six months the patient is likely to become a chronic carrier. HBsAg is the only serologic marker tested for in St. Vincent and the Grenadines. Testing for this marker began in 1986. This article presents the results analysed over the last five years. Based on the results of the population tested, future steps that should be taken to control the spread of the disease are recommended (AU)

Immunological surface marker and histocompatibility antigens in childhood acute Lymphoblastic leukaemia in Trinidad - abstract

Between October, 1983 and May, 1986, seventeen cases of childhood acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (ALL) were diagnosed on clinical grounds, supported by the findings of blast cells in the blood film or the bone marrow aspirate. All the patients had more than 25 percent blast cells in the bone marrow. Patients were described as belonging to a particular ethnic group when all four grandparents belonged to that group. Typing for lymphocyte surface markers was done at the time of the initial diagnosis. Fifteen of seventeen cases were under 10 years of age. Boys outnumbered girls by almost 5:1 Ten of the seventeen patients were of East Indian origin; five were of mixed ethnicity, with three of these having at least one grandparent of East Indian origin. Seven of the patients under ten years of age presented with bone and/or joint pains. Nine of the seventeen ALL patients were successfully phenotyped for immunological surface markers. Six of these carried T-cell markers. Four of the six T-cell clones were thymocytes (three stage III and one stage I). Three patients were common ALL antigen-positive (CALLA+) but these also had markers suggestive of a pre-B phenotype (OK-, OKB2+, CALLA+ and OKT-10+). HLA tissue typing of ten of the patients showed an enhanced frequency of th HLA B-40 antigen when compared with controls (p<.0001). This antigen was present in 60 percent of the patients typed, 40 percent of whom carried the HLA A2/B40 halotype. None of the cases carried the HLA B-5 antigen although this antigen had a frequency of 19 percent in the control group (p<0.05). The antigen A-11 showed a decreased frequency (10 percent percent in patients compared with controls (13.3 percent), while B-15 showed an increased frequency (15.0 percent) compared with the control group (4.0 percent), but these differences were not statistically significant. Childhood leukaemia in Trinidad is primarily a disease of East Indian children. Bone or joint pain seems to be a common presenting feature and the common ALL antigen type of leukaemia is less common than T-cell leukaemia, Current evidence would suggest a linkage diequilibrium between HLA B-40 and childhood ALL in Trinidad (AU)

Surface markers in lymphoproliferative disorders in Jamaica - abstract

No data have been reported on surface marker studies on haematological malignancies in the Commonwealth Caribbean. Surface marker studies were performed on 14 patients with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (NHL) and eleven patients with chronic lymphocytic leukaemia (CLL) using rosetting and immunofluorescent techniques on lymphocytes separated by a density gradient flotation method. Twelve of the 14 NHL patients had T-cell disease, indicating that the cell origin of NHL in Jamaica differs from that reported in North America or Europe, where B-cell disease predominates. Nine of 11 were HTLV-antibody-positive, suggesting that they had adult T-cell leukaemia/lymphoma. Ten of the 11 CLL patients had B-Cll, similar to findings elsewhere. However, the frequency of HTLV-antibody-positivity was unexpectedly high in this group (35 percent) and a virus has been isolated from the T-cells of one of the B-CLL patients (AU)