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Milk for babies and children

1991; BMJ; Volume: 302; Issue: 6772 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1136/bmj.302.6772.350-b

0959-8138

Alexandra Lucas, S. Lockton, P. S. W. Davies,

Infant Nutrition and Health

Activity of dopamine-(3-hydroxylase (D[H), C reactive protein (CRP), and serum amyloid A (SAA) in patients with familial Mediterranean fever and controls DI3H (ltmol/min/l) Mean (SD) Mean (SD) Group Mean (SD) Range CRP (mg/i) SAA (mg/i) Patients with familial Mediterranean fever: Acute attack (n= 15) 16 (8) 2-27 83 (91) 326 (247) Receiving colchicine (n= 23) 18 (9) 7-50 15 (19) 55 (82) No colchicine (n= 15) 16 (8) 9-33 22 (39) 66 (107) Controls: With acute abdomen (n= 12) 16 (7) 3-28 35 (55) 134 (232) Healthy (n= 16) 16 (6) 5-30 6 (2) 20 (14)We therefore collected serum samples from three groups of patients with familial Mediter- ranean fever and two control groups and measured dopamine-,1-hydroxylase activity as previously described.4In agreement with a recent study by Ben-Chetrit et all we could not detect significant differences between any of the groups.In addition we confirmed that the group with familial Mediterranean fever was in an active phase of the disease by measuring the acute phase proteins, serum amyloid A -and C reactive protein, using enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) methods developed in this laboratory.6Raised acute phase protein concentrations were found in the group with acute familial Mediterranean fever and the control group with acute abdomen (table).Our data show that there is no correlation between the acute phase response to inflammation and dopamine-4-hydroxylase activities.The activity of the dopamine-fi-hydroxylase was similar to that reported by Ben-Chetrit et al.5 This is the second report showing no diagnostic specificity for dopamine-4-hydroxylase values, suggesting that we should look for alternative biochemical markers for the diagnosis of familial Mediterranean fever.