Prevalence of Amoebic Liver Abscess (ALA) for IgG Anti-body Titers among Patients in Bangui, Central African Republic

Abstract

This chapter determines the prevalence of ALA and the titer of IgG anti amoebic in patients suspected with ALA in Bangui. In addition, we also analyzed the results with respect to the sex age of the individuals and other risk factors. The diagnosis of amebic liver abscess is sometimes difficult since its clinical manifestations are highly variable. In areas of endemicity, amebic liver abscess should always be suspected in a patient with fever, weight loss, and right upper quadrant abdominal pain and tenderness.

A cross sectional study was performed whereby all clinical or suspected ALA patients’ who were admitted to the National Laboratory between January 2018 - October 2020. The diagnosis of ALA was suspected based on clinical symptoms of; fever, abdominal pain (usually in the right hypochondrium or epigastrium) and clinical signs of hepatomegaly and/or tender liver with or without jaundice and abdominal ultra-sonography. The higher antibody titer response against in ALA patients could be indicative of a more intense engagement of the immune system with the pathogen in the liver during invasive disease. ALA patients’ IgG antibody titers were measured by Indirect Hemmaglutination Assay and Chi-square test was used. A total of 1249 ALA patients were included, among whom 570 (45.64%) were positive. Of these, 244 (42.08%) had titer 1:160 or less, 223 patients’ (39.13%) had titer ranging from 1:320 to 1:640 and 103 patients (18.07%) had strong titer ranging from 1:1280 to 1:2560. The association between antibody titer results, age and sex was no significant (p = 1.0000). Our findings indicate a high prevalence of ALA and show no significant difference between the sex and age ALA patients. Sex dependent differences in susceptibility and resistance to many infections in particular amoebiasis disease become unquestionably an increasing field of interest.