Can mutations in ELA2, neutrophil elastase expression or differential cell toxicity explain sulphasalazine-induced agranulocytosis?

Table 2 Characteristics of subjects

	Cases (n = 36)	Controls (n = 72)	p-value
Age range (median)	11–77 (55)	13–90 (47)	0.023
WBC before ^a	9.3 ± 4.7	8.5 ± 2.5	0.26
Dose of sulphasalazine (gram/day)	2.2 ± 0.6	2.0 ± 0.4	0.13
Male : Female	17 : 19	33 : 39	0.891

^a WBC data only available for 28 cases and 67 controls.
Cases are defined as the patients treated with sulphasalazine, who were diagnosed with agranulocytosis and controls were defined as patients treated with sulphasalazine without hematological side effects within the first three months of sulphasalazine treatment. The statistics of differences between cases and controls in age, white blood cell count (WBC) before sulphasalazine treatment and dose of sulphasalazine was calculated with 2-tailed Student's t-test. The frequency of males versus females was calculated with Chi² test, one degree of freedom. Significance level was set at 0.05.

ISSN: 2052-1839