Evaluation of Serum Iron Overload, AST:ALT Ratio and Log10ferritin:AST Ratio Among Schizophrenia Patients in the Kumasi Metropolis, Ghana: a Case-Control Study
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View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Research Online @ ECU Edith Cowan University Research Online ECU Publications Post 2013 1-1-2019 Evaluation of serum iron overload, AST:ALT ratio and log10ferritin:AST ratio among schizophrenia patients in the Kumasi Metropolis, Ghana: A case-control study W. K. B. A. Owiredu Peter Kojo Brenya Yaw Osei Edwin Ferguson Laing Clement Opoku Okrah See next page for additional authors Follow this and additional works at: https://ro.ecu.edu.au/ecuworkspost2013 Part of the Medicine and Health Sciences Commons 10.1186/s13104-019-4847-2 Owiredu, W. K. B. A., Brenya, P. K., Osei, Y., Laing, E. F., Okrah, C. O., Obirikorang, C., ... Donkor, S. (2019). Evaluation of serum iron overload, AST: ALT ratio and log 10 ferritin: AST ratio among schizophrenia patients in the Kumasi Metropolis, Ghana: a case–control study. BMC Research Notes, 12, Article 802. Available here This Journal Article is posted at Research Online. https://ro.ecu.edu.au/ecuworkspost2013/7327 Authors W. K. B. A. Owiredu, Peter Kojo Brenya, Yaw Osei, Edwin Ferguson Laing, Clement Opoku Okrah, Christian Obirikorang, Enoch Odame Anto, Emmanuel Acheampong, and Sampson Donkor This journal article is available at Research Online: https://ro.ecu.edu.au/ecuworkspost2013/7327 Owiredu et al. BMC Res Notes (2019) 12:802 https://doi.org/10.1186/s13104-019-4847-2 BMC Research Notes RESEARCH NOTE Open Access Evaluation of serum iron overload, AST:ALT ratio and log10ferritin:AST ratio among schizophrenia patients in the Kumasi Metropolis, Ghana: a case–control study W. K. B. A. Owiredu1, Peter Kojo Brenya1, Yaw Osei3, Edwin Ferguson Laing1, Clement Opoku Okrah4, Christian Obirikorang1, Enoch Odame Anto1,2, Emmanuel Acheampong1,2 and Sampson Donkor1* Abstract Objective: The association between unbalanced iron indices and the conditions of schizophrenia are not well under- stood. Liver dysfunction which has been linked to iron metabolism might be a contributing factor. This case–control study evaluated serum iron indices and liver function in treatment-naïve schizophrenia patients and those already on treatment at the Psychiatric Department of the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital (KATH), Kumasi-Ghana. Results: The mean age of the respondents was 39.6 0.8 years. Increased levels of serum iron, TS, AST, ALT and AST:ALT ratio and lower levels of UIBC, TIBC, Transferrin,± and log Ferritin:AST ratio levels were observed among the treatment-naïve group compared to the control. The treatment-naïve and treatment groups showed signifcantly higher serum AST:ALT ratio, and lower log10ferrtin:AST ratio than the healthy controls. There was a signifcant correla- tion between log10ferritin and AST, and log10ferritin and GGT in both treatments (r 0.343; p 0.003, and r 0.502; p 0.001 respectively) and treatment-naïve groups (r 0.348; p 0.002, and r 0.614;= p < 0.001= respectively).= Percent- age= transferrin saturation correlated signifcantly with =GGT only, =in the treatment-naïve= group (r 0.667; p < 0.001), and ALT and GGT in the treatment group (r 0.252; p 0.030 and r 0.646; p 0.014 respectively).= = = = = Keywords: Iron overload, Schizophrenia, AST:ALT ratio, log10ferritin:AST Introduction of the adult population sufer from some form of mental According to the World Health Organization (WHO) disorder [2]. [1], mental disorders account for fve of the ten leading Studies in Ghana have indicated that schizophrenia is causes of disability and premature death worldwide, of the leading psychiatric condition [3, 4]. Owiredu et al. [5] which neuropsychiatric condition accounts for 13% of in their study in Ghana reported a prevalence of 59% for the total disability adjusted life years [1]. A prevalence schizophrenia compared to other psychiatric conditions [5]. based rate report from the World Mental Health Survey Serious mental illness is accompanied by higher morbidity 2004, undertaken by WHO in Ghana estimated that, 13% and mortality rates of chronic diseases such as lung disease, diabetes and liver problems [6]. A previous study found that liver dysfunction is particularly elevated in adults with men- tal illness [7]. Iron overload has been reported to be signif- *Correspondence: [email protected] 1 Department of Molecular Medicine, KNUST School of Medicine cantly associated with liver damage [8]. and Dentistry, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology Iron overload (IO) has been reported to be associated with (KNUST), Kumasi, Ghana parenchymal and organ dysfunction following abnormal Full list of author information is available at the end of the article © The Author(s) 2019. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creat iveco mmons .org/licen ses/by/4.0/. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creat iveco mmons .org/publi cdoma in/ zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data. Owiredu et al. BMC Res Notes (2019) 12:802 Page 2 of 6 deposition of tissue iron [9, 10]. Dangers of IO in several illness were included in the study. All respondents disease conditions over the years including coronary disease were ≥ 18 years. [10–12], diabetes mellitus [10, 13], sexual impotence [9, 10], cerebral ischemic disease [10, 14] and neurologic or psychi- Exclusion criteria atric alterations [10, 15] has been noted. Schizophrenia patients already on iron therapy, non-ste- Te manifestations of neuropsychiatric efects of roidal anti-infammatory agents, antacids, alcohol con- chronic iron overload have been observed in depressives, sumption, pain killers such as paracetamol etc., multiple memory loss, paranoia, visual hallucination, lethargy, blood transfusions and androgen/oestrogen therapy were disorientation, dementia, and anxiety symptoms [16, 17]. all excluded from the study. However, the pathophysiology of iron metabolism in psy- chiatric illnesses still remains unclear, albeit several stud- Questionnaire administration and sample collection ies have suggested a possible link between serum iron A validated questionnaire was administered to all and some variables in psychiatric conditions [16, 18]. respondents by qualifed nurses to collect demographic Tere is dearth of data on serum iron indices among data including age and gender. About 4 ml of venous psychiatric patients in Ghana, and the association blood sample was collected from the antecubital fosa of between iron overload and primary psychiatric illness. the study participants after an overnight fast, and sera Also, little is known about the liver function of psychi- were obtained after centrifugation.Assayparameters atric patients in Ghana. Tis study therefore evaluated included: serum iron, unsaturated iron binding capacity serum iron indices and liver function among schizophre- (UIBC), total iron binding capacity (TIBC), transferrin, nia patients in a Ghanaian population. ferritin, percentage transferrin saturation, aspartate ami- notransferase (AST), gamma glutamyl transferase (GGT) Main text and alanine aminotransferase (ALT). AST, GGT and ALT Methods were performed on a fully automated Mindray BS-380 Study population and setting auto-analyzer (Shenzhen Mindray Bio-medical electron- Tis case–control study was carried out at the Psychiat- ics Co., Ltd, China). Ferritin was performed on Mindray ® ric department of the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital, microplate reader MR 96 A. Te assay for UIBC and Kumasi-Ghana. Qualifying patients attending the psychi- iron were performed on the Mindray BA-88A Biochem- atric department were recruited into the study using Inter- istry auto-analyzer. Transferrin concentration was esti- national classifcation of Diseases (ICD-10). Healthy control mated according to Vernet [19] and Gambino et al. [20] participants were recruited from a keep ft club. A total of equation. 200 participants comprising 75 treatment-naïve schizophre- nia patients, 75 schizophrenia patients on treatment and 50 Statistical analysis healthy controls were recruited via purposive sampling. Results are presented as mean ± SD. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) coupled with Tukey’s post hoc multiple com- Ethical consideration parisons was used to compare more than two means of Te study was approved by the Committee on Human continuous variables. Unpaired t-test was used to com- Research, Publications and Ethics (CHRPE), and the pare the means of two continuous variables. Chi-square Research and Development Unit of the Komfo Anokye test was used to assess the associations between cat- Teaching Hospital (KATH). Written informed consent egorized variables. Partial Pearson correlation was per- was obtained from each participant through their legally formed to test for associations between iron indices and authorised family