Clinical evaluation of serum immunoglobulins in amoebiasis.

In eighty-nine adult Nigerians, with clinical and asymptomatic amoebiasis and in patients with conditions other than amoebiasis, serum concentrations of immunoglobulins (G, A and M) are presented as geometric mean values (mg/ml). Statistical analysis revealed a significant relationship between active symptomatic amoebiasis and raised IgG concentrations in all the groups studied except in pregnant and post-partum states. In contrast, analyses of the IgA and IgM data showed no significant correlation except in males with amoebic dysentery; and in males with amoebic liver abscess in which the respective immunoglobulins are significantly raised (Table 1). Estimation of immunoglobulin levels during a follow-up study in fifteen amoebiasis patients showed a tendency for IgG to fall appreciably with treatment of the disease. The role of humoral immune responses in amoebiasis is discussed in the light of the low levels found in pregnancy and post-partum states, when the disease is known to be most severe.