Prevalencia de las patologías mediante el análisis de los niveles séricos c3-c4 en pacientes del laboratorio clínico “Solidario”

Abstract

The complement system is involved in various types of pathologies, from inflammatory and autoimmune disorders to immunodeficiency states, becoming crucial for clinical laboratories to provide optimized and timely complement analysis, where the evaluation of serum levels of C3 and C4 can help in the differential diagnosis of these diseases, in the same way, the regular monitoring of these biomarkers can contribute to the effectiveness of treatment and the adjustment of individualized therapy. The prevalence of the different pathologies in patients attending the "Solidario" clinical laboratory in the city of Machala has increased in recent years. Among the immunological markers involved are the complement proteins C3-C4, which, in spite of their importance, lack specific studies in patients with different pathologies in this locality. With the aim of determining the prevalence of pathologies, by analyzing serum levels of complement C3-C4 in patients attending the Clinical Laboratory "Solidario" during the year 2023, in order to contribute to clinical practice from a statistical point of view, a study with both qualitative and quantitative approach and descriptive type was performed thanks to the collection of the results of 83 patients presenting pathologies with altered serum levels of complement C3-C4, a clinical history of age and sex, measured serum levels of both C3 and C4, as well as results of complementary tests Antinuclear Antibodies (ANA) and Anti-double-stranded DNA. Thanks to all these results, the age and sex of the study population were determined, highlighting that women of childbearing age were the most prone to suffer from autoimmune diseases, accounting for 47% of the cases; It was also possible to relate the serum levels of complement C3 and C4 with the different pathologies of the patients under study, where 50 patients who did not present pathologies were discarded, therefore, of the 33 patients the most prevalent autoimmune disease was Systemic Lupus Erythematosus (SLE) with 12% of the cases analyzed, followed by Diabetes with 9. 6% of the results obtained. Subsequently, serum C3 and C4 levels were correlated with the results of specific ANA and cDNA tests, where SLE was reiterated as the most prevalent autoimmune disease in the study population. The comparison of serum levels of complement C3 and C4 with the different pathologies, and their correlation with complementary tests suggests the use of these tests as biomarkers in the evaluation and follow-up of these diseases, thus facilitating better stratification and therapeutic management. It is recommended to obtain specific data to determine whether the women in the study population are pregnant or not, which can provide more accurate results, also it can be determined if patients have more than one pathology at the time of laboratory tests, establish the specific type of diabetes that may present the study population, and perform a detailed follow-up of patients to specify results to support the research.