RESUMO
Background and Aims: chronic obstructive pulmonary disease [COPD] is a kind of pulmonary diseases characterized by chronic obstruction of lung that is in the form of a diffuse narrowing of airways resulting in air flow resistance. Alpha-1 antitrypsin [AAT] deficiency is genetically relatively common risk factor in patients with COPD throughout the world and the exact cause of its prevalence is unknown. We therefore performed a study to determine the frequency of AAT deficiency in patients with severe COPD compared to the healthy controls
Materials and Methods: in this cross-sectional case control study, AAT serum level in 60 patients with severe COPD for whom the history and spirometry test with FEV1<50% had been confirmed based on gold criteria as well as 60 healthy controls, were tested using commercial kit and nephelometry method
Results: the lowest serum levels of AAT measured in patients was <0.349 g/l and the highest was 3.099 g/l. These were obtained in healthy subjects as 1.180 g/l and 4.195 g/l respectively. Out of 60 patients, 4 [6.7%] had partial deficiency of AAT [AAT<1 g/l] and 6 [10%] had definite shortage of AAT [AAT<0.5 g/l]. In healthy subjects, we did not find any definite and relative lack of AAT. The comparison of results obtained from these two groups indicated a significant difference between frequency of AAT [P=0.001]
Conclusions: our findings revealed the frequency of AAT deficiency, as a factor involved in COPD disease, to be 10% and can be the reason for the high prevalence and severity of COPD in Zahedan city