Search

In Tunisia, beta-thalassemia major is a real public health problem. A study carried out of patients affected shows that for them, this chronic haemoglobinopathy is a disability hampering their physical activities, their social integration, their academic results and their emotional life.

Sickle cell disease is a serious illness by its complications. For the severe forms, three therapeutic options are actually allowed: transfusion therapy, hydroxyurea and bone marrow transplantation. aim: To evaluate the contribution of hydroxyurea in the management of severe forms of sickle cell disease. methods: It is a prospective study carried out a period of 11 years in "Centre National de Greffe de Moelle Osseuse" of Tunis. They were 65 patients divided into 38 homozygote forms and 27 double heterozygous composite S/β thalassemics. The mean age was 130 months. The failure criterion of the treatment was hospitalization duration more than 15 days/ patient / year or the occurrence of a severe complication of the disease. results: The main indications of hydroxyurea were the prevention of the recidivism of an acute chest syndrome in 8 cases, iterative painful crises, more than 3 events per year, in 53 cases and anemic forms of the disease in 4 cases. We have observed, a rapid and durable improvement in the clinical manifestations and a significant fall of the number of hospitalization days / patient/year from 25.2 days to 2.6 days (p0.001). The treatment was well tolerated. The rates of foetal hemoglobin have significantly increased from 6.4 to 27.45 % (p0.001), of hemoglobin from 7.6 to 9.4 g/dl(p0.001), of the mean corpuscular volume from 80.3 to 99.1 fl (p0.001), and a significant fall of the white blood cell rate from 15077 to 8170/mm3 (p0.001), of polynuclear neutrophils from 8015 to 3509/mm3 (p0.001), and reticulocytes from 693736 to 209837 /mm3(p0.001) was observed.Ten patients were considered as treatment failure with a failure rate of 15.3%. The main failure etiology was represented with bad observance.Hydroxyurea has a favored place in management of severe forms of sickle cell diseases of the child. Carefully used, with frequent monitoring does not have problems in short range but acceptance studies on the long term mast be undertaken.

The chronic granulomatous disease is characterised by the occurence of multiple bacterial and fungal infections since the early childhood. This susceptibility to infections must be prevented by a primary prophlylaxis against the opportunistic germs like pneumocystis and aspergillus. Our case is about a twelve-year-old boy who had a prophylaxis since his fourth month of life. At 10 years he presented a pleuro-pneumonia refractory to a large spectrum antibiotherapy. The aspergillar etiology was established on clinical, radiological and serological arguments. An amphotericine B treatment allowed a good clinical and radiological outcome of this pleuro-pulmonary affection. However, a dorsal spondylodiscitis complicated the course of the disease. A secondary vertebral aspergillosis or a Pott's disease were suspected. The vertebral bipsy was'nt conclusive. The association of antituberculous and antifungal agents with adjuvant molecules (IFN, granulotic transfusions and GM-CSF) permitted a good clinical outcome and the stabilisation of the radiological lesions.

Leukocyte adhesion deficiency (LAD) is a rare primary immunodeficiency inherited as an autosomal recessive genetic disorder. LAD was suspected in a four days old girl. She was born from healthy first cousins. A family history of a boy who died from omphalitis and sepsis was reported. Our patient had the severe form, she had delayed umbilical cord separation and suffered recurrent infections. She had a deletion of the G at position 1497. The patient received bone marrow transplantation from her HLA-identical mother at age of 14 months. She is now 9 years old and in good health.

The innate deficit of the third constituent of the complement is extremely rare, it appears clinically as a deficit of the humorale immunity. We report a case of C3 deficit in a 6 year old Tunisian child, who presents a psychomotor delay and recurrent infections. The investigation of the complement system profile by an immunochemical test of the children's serum shows an absence of C3 and C3d, associated to a loss of classic and alternate hemolytic pathway activities. The addition of functional C3 in the deficient serum restores the global hemolytic activity. The reconstruction of the hemolytic activity is dose dependent of C3 added quantity. The rate of C3 is lowered in the parent's with a 50% decrease of the global hemolytic activity. Immunochemical measurement of C3d confirms the absence of any C3 catabolism product in vivo. On the other hand (factor I) show a normal rate to all the family members.

The hyper-IgM syndrome (HIGM) is a rare hereditary immune deficiency, characterised by a low or nil level of IgG and IgA and a normal or increased level of IgM, predominately affecting boys. Its clinical manifestations are dominated by recurrent infection, notably of the digestive tube, the ears nose and throat and the lungs.We conducted a retrospective study of the medical files of 13 patients with 10 boys and 3 girls from 12 different families. In all the patients, the diagnosis was established on measuring the serum immunoglobulines IgG, IgA and IgM using Mancini's technique.The mean age at the onset of the disease was of 20 months (6 - 42 months). The clinical manifestations were dominated by recurrent and persisting infections, notably digestive (10 cases), respiratory (9 cases), cutaneous (5 cases) and glandular (5 cases). No pulmonary Pneumocystis carinii infection or sclerosing Cryptosporidium cholangitis was observed. Two boys exhibited neurological manifestations, unrelated to an infection. The IgG deficiency was constant and IgA deficieny encountered in 12 patients. Ten patients exhibited a high level of IgM (4.6 - 29,9 g/l) whereas this was normal in the 3 others. The expression of the CD(40) ligand was absent in the 6 boys in whom it was assessed and normal in the only girl studied. Eleven patients exhibited concomitant cellular immune deficiency. Three patients presented moderate neutropenia. Nine patients received replacement therapy with IV immunoglobulines with a residual level of IgG at 8,27 g/l (4 - 14,45 g/l) associated with the regression in the manifestations of infection. One patient died from a Burkitt lymphoma before any treatment was initiated.The primary hyper-IgM syndrome in Tunisia is characterised by a relative frequency of autosomal recessive forms (3 girls), the absence of Pneumocystis carinii pulmonary infections and sclerosing cholangitis and the occurrence of neurological manifestations (2 cases).

Aspergillosis is a fungic infection depending on the local or general physiologic and immunologic state of the host. We report the result of retrospective five year study (1995-1999) about 17 cases in the laboratory of Parasitology-Mycology of Rabta hospital in Tunis. Six aspergillomas were observed, they occurred after a pulmonary tuberculosis, two cases of allergic broncho-pulmonary aspergillosis described in two asthmatic patients, nine cases of invasive pulmonary aspergillosis complicating two cancers, one leukaemia, six chronic granulomatous disease. Aspergillus fumigatus is the most frequent species (67%). The clinical and biological characteristic of those will be studied, and compared with those of the literature.