ABSTRACT
Detection of certain autoantibodies and other non-specific inflammatory markers were employed in to predict an ongoing process of developing diabetes in first degree relatives of T1D patients. The main objective of this study was to evaluate the value of monitoring of selected specific and non specific serum markers in the presumptive prediction of Type 1 diabetes in first degree relatives of diabetic patients. First degree relatives of diagnostically confirmed diabetic patients were used as a test group. Type 1 diabetic patients and non-relatives healthy control groups of both genders were used for comparison. Sera from all subjects were monitored for glutamic acid decarboxylase antibody, anti-insulin antibody, complement C3 and C4, C-reactive protein and fasting blood sugar and the standardization of the maximum and minimum limits of the studied markers level was plotted to reduce the overlapping in the markers' values between each pair of the studied groups. The frequency of seropositivity for glutamic acid decarboxylase antibody was 24.0% in first degree relatives group compared to 77.1% and 0% in patients and control groups respectively. For anti-insulin antibody and C-reactive protein, a very few members of the first degree relative group were positive compared to those in the patients group. The results of C3 revealed a higher than normal level in 44.0% of first degree relatives group, 65.7% in patients group and 0% in control group. In contrast to that, C4 showed a lower than normal level in 28.0% of first degree relatives group compared to 57.1% and 0% in patients and control groups respectively. Monitoring of glutamic acid decarboxylase antibody, C3 and C4, but not anti-insulin antibody and C-reactive protein levels may be used as markers for a possible developing T1D in first degree relatives that precede the elevation of fasting blood sugar in serum. a narrow scale border line in the quantitative serum values of these markers is helpful in the standardization of this prediction