Prevalence of Anemia, Iron Deficiency, Iron Deficiency Anemia and Diagnostic Performance of Hematologic and Biochemical Markers of Sideropenia in 1- to 5-Year-Old Children in Thrace Greece.

Background and Objective: Iron deficiency (ID) is a major public health problem with high prevalence in early childhood. We assessed the prevalence of anemia, ID, and iron deficiency anemia (IDA) in healthy children of Thrace, Greece, its correlation with several factors, and evaluated the diagnostic performance of hematologic and biochemical markers of sideropenia. Patients and Methods: For 202 healthy children 1-5 years old, a questionnaire was filled out describing their nutritional habits during infancy and early childhood. Venous hemograms along with serum ferritin, TIBC, %TS, and CRP were obtained from all studied children. In a subset of 156 children, the concentration of sTfR was also determined. Results: Children with ID and IDA had significantly lower beef consumption than children without sideropenia (p=0.044). Using the WHO cutoff values of Hb <11g/dl and ferritin <12µg/l, the prevalence of anemia, ID, and IDA was 9.41%, 6.44%, and 3.47%, respectively. If Hb <12g/dl and ferritin<18µg/l were used as cutoffs, the prevalence of anemia, ID, and IDA was 26.73%, 16.33%, and 5.94%, respectively. ROC analysis revealed that at ferritin <12µg/l, the AUC of sTfR alone (0.827) was substantially better than that of TIBC (0.691), while at serum ferritin cutoff of 18µg/l, the AUC of TIBC (0.770) was better than that of sTfR (0.716). Conclusions: The prevalence of ID and IDA in children 1-5 years old in Thrace is like in other developed countries. The chosen cutoff of serum ferritin affects the evaluation of the diagnostic significance of the different sideropenia markers.

Overexpression of GPC6 and TMEM132D in Early Stage Ovarian Cancer Correlates with CD8+ T-Lymphocyte Infiltration and Increased Patient Survival.

Infiltration of cytotoxic T-lymphocytes in ovarian cancer is a favorable prognostic factor. Employing a differential expression approach, we have recently identified a number of genes associated with CD8+ T-cell infiltration in early stage ovarian tumors. In the present study, we validated by qPCR the expression of two genes encoding the transmembrane proteins GPC6 and TMEM132D in a cohort of early stage ovarian cancer patients. The expression of both genes correlated positively with the mRNA levels of CD8A, a marker of T-lymphocyte infiltration [Pearson coefficient: 0.427 (p = 0.0067) and 0.861 (p < 0.0001), resp.]. GPC6 and TMEM132D expression was also documented in a variety of ovarian cancer cell lines. Importantly, Kaplan-Meier survival analysis revealed that high mRNA levels of GPC6 and/or TMEM132D correlated significantly with increased overall survival of early stage ovarian cancer patients (p = 0.032). Thus, GPC6 and TMEM132D may serve as predictors of CD8+ T-lymphocyte infiltration and as favorable prognostic markers in early stage ovarian cancer with important consequences for diagnosis, prognosis, and tumor immunobattling.