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An audit of lymphopenia in infants under 3 months of age

¹ Department of Immunology, Birmingham Heartlands Hospital, Birmingham, UK
² Medical School, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK
³ Department of Paediatrics, Birmingham Heartlands Hospital, Birmingham, UK

Correspondence to:
Dr M T Krishna, Department of Immunology, Bordesley Green East, Birmingham B9 5SS, UK; mtkrishna@yahoo.com

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Severe combined immunodeficiency (SCID) describes a group of rare genetic disorders characterised by deficient or absent T cell immunity, with an estimated incidence of 1 in 50 000 to 1 in 500 000.¹ SCID is considered a paediatric emergency, but early clues, such as lymphopenia, are often not noted.² As a result, the UK Primary Immunodeficiency Network (UK PIN) recommends that children under 2 years of age with an absolute lymphocyte count (ALC) below 3000/µl must be screened for SCID.³

A retrospective audit was carried out in our hospital to determine whether lymphopenia was noted by clinicians and to assess the feasibility of implementing UK PIN guidelines. Infants with lymphopenia under 3 months of age were identified from laboratory records between 2000 and 2002 and their records were reviewed for features of possible SCID (table 1).