1. Conjunctival impression cytology for assessment of vitamin A status
- Author
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Veeramohan Rao, Vinodini Reddy, Madhavi Reddy, and Arunjyothi
- Subjects
Male ,Paper ,Vitamin ,medicine.medical_specialty ,Pathology ,Eye disease ,India ,Medicine (miscellaneous) ,Disease ,Gastroenterology ,Epithelium ,chemistry.chemical_compound ,Internal medicine ,Cytology ,medicine ,Humans ,Mass Screening ,Child ,Vitamin A ,Subclinical infection ,Clinical Trials as Topic ,Nutrition and Dietetics ,Staining and Labeling ,Vitamin A Deficiency ,business.industry ,Retinol ,medicine.disease ,Vitamin A deficiency ,Clinical trial ,chemistry ,Child, Preschool ,Female ,business ,Conjunctiva - Abstract
Ocular signs and serum vitamin A concentrations are commonly used for the diagnosis ofvitamin A deficiency. Recently, impression cytology was suggested as a method for early detection of this condition. A clinical trial was conducted to compare the results of impression cytology with the other two indicators of vitamin A status. A total of 246 children aged 1-10 y were investigated. About 25% ofthe children with normal eyes showed abnormal cytology. Their mean vitamin A concentrations were significantly lower compared with those with normal cytology, which suggests that abnormal cytology reflects subclinical deficiency. After treatment with vitamin A, most of the children who had abnormal cytology at baseline examination showed improvement. These observations suggest that abnormal cytology is spe- cific to vitamin A deficiency. Impression cytology is a relatively simple technique and can be used for assessing the magnitude of the problem, especially in communities where the preva- lence ofclinical disease is low. Am J C/in Nutr 1989;50:8l4-7.
- Published
- 1989
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