A study of soluble CD30 in patients with primary immune thrombocytopenia

INTRODUCTION: The primary cause of immune thrombocytopenic purpura (ITP), an acquired type of thrombocytopenia, is the destruction of platelets by autoantibodies. Nowadays, there is a lot of interest in using noninvasive biomarkers to diagnose and detect the severity of many disorders. This study aimed to evaluate the association of one such biomarker, CD30, with primary immune thrombocytopenia. METHODS: The study included 50 patients with ITP and 30 healthy individuals with matched age and sex used as a control group. For all participants, the messenger RNA (mRNA) expression of CD30 was measured by real-time polymerase chain reaction, and the concentration of plasma soluble CD30 (sCD30) was estimated using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. RESULTS: The plasma sCD30 level was substantially higher in patients with ITP than in control individuals (P = .043), and the expression level of CD30 mRNA was substantially higher in patients with ITP than in control individuals (P < .001). In addition, the plasma sCD30 level was higher in active ITP cases than in remission ITP cases (P < .001), and the expression of CD30 mRNA was substantially higher in active ITP cases than in remission ITP cases (P < .001). DISCUSSION: Estimation of plasma sCD30 and CD30 mRNA levels has good utility for assessing the disease activity in patients with ITP.