Diagnostic Performance of Erythropoietin and Erythropoietin Receptors Levels in Children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder

OBJECTIVE: Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a heterogeneous, highly heritable, a common childhood neurobehavioural disorder resulting from complex gene-gene and gene-environment interactions. The erythropoietin (Epo)/erythropoietin receptors (EpoR) system turned out to have additional important functions in nonhematopoietic tissue. In this study, we aimed to investigate the levels of Epo and and EpoR, and also their diagnostic values in children with ADHD. METHODS: A total of 70 children were included in the study, 35 drug-naive patients with ADHD (age 6−12 years; male/female 20/15) and 35 healthy controls (age 6−12 years; male/female 22/13). Serum Epo and EpoR levels was determined using a commercial sandwich enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay kit. RESULTS: The results indicated that the levels of Epo decreased in patients with ADHD compared to control (p < 0.05). On the other hand, EpoR levels increased in these patients (p < 0.05). Furthermore, the ratio of Epo/EpoR was significantly lower in ADHD patients than controls (p < 0.05). Receiver operator characteristic curve analysis showed high diagnostic performance for Epo and EpoR, areas under curve were 0.980 and 1.000, respectively. CONCLUSION: This is the first report to investigate the association between serum Epo and EpoR levels in ADHD patients. Our results indicated that Epo may play a role in the etiology of ADHD, and Epo therapy may be beneficial in these disorders if given in addition to the routine treatment of children with ADHD. Furthermore, our results reveal possible diagnostic value of Epo and EpoR.