Antitetanus Toxoid Antibody Titer of Chronic Hemodialysis Patients in Iran

Background: Patients with end stage renal disease have higher incidence of infection dis-eases that is thought to be related to impaired immune system. Objective: To determine the antitetanus IgG antibody level in Iranian hemodialysis patients with end stage renal disease and to find its association with sex, age, blood hemoglobin, serum albumin, dura-tion of dialysis, time of dialysis per week, dialysis adequacy, erythropoietin, or iron sup-plementation, body mass index (BMI) and underlying renal disorder. Methods: We con-ducted a cross sectional study on a total of 108 Iranian hemodialysis patients with end stage renal disorder, and 36 healthy individuals in the control group matched with the pa-tient group. The patients and controls did not receive any antitetanus vaccine or immu-noglobulins a year prior to the investigation. The serum antitetanus IgG antibody levels were measured by an ELISA method. Results: We found 74.3% of patients to have un-protected antitetanus IgG antibody level compared with 52.8% of the control group. Ex-cept hemodialysis duration, none of the contributing factors seemed to affect immunity. Conclusion: We conclude that in our study, there is a significant difference in the an-titetanus IgG antibody level between hemodialysis patients and the control group and also in the chronic hemodialysis patients.