{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,10,2]],"date-time":"2026-10-02T06:54:56Z","timestamp":1790924096792,"version":"4.1.0"},"update-to":[{"DOI":"10.12688\/f1000research.162460.1","type":"new_version","label":"New version","source":"publisher","updated":{"date-parts":[[2025,8,21]],"date-time":"2025-08-21T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1755734400000}}],"reference-count":42,"publisher":"F1000 Research Ltd","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2025,8,21]],"date-time":"2025-08-21T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1755734400000},"content-version":"tdm","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"content-domain":{"domain":["f1000research.com"],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["F1000Res"],"abstract":"<ns3:p>\n                    Aims To examine the correlation between iron, ferritin concentrations, and\n                    <ns3:italic>C. albicans<\/ns3:italic>\n                    infection in individuals with beta-thalassemia major and beta-thalassemia minor compared with healthy subjects. Materials and methods It involved 90 participants, thirty patients with thalassemia major and thirty patients with thalassemia minor compared with thirty healthy controls. Saliva samples were obtained and cultivated to isolate, identify, and calculate the viable colony count of\n                    <ns3:italic>C. albicans<\/ns3:italic>\n                    in (cfu\/ml). In contrast, serum levels of iron and ferritin were quantified using chemical analyzers. Result Showed that 73.33% of thalassemia major group exhibited oral\n                    <ns3:italic>C. albicans<\/ns3:italic>\n                    colonization, which is significantly higher than that of thalassemia minor group 40% and control group 6.67%. Biochemical analyses revealed significantly higher iron 278.82 \u03bcg\/dl and ferritin 2783.80 ng\/ml levels in major group p&lt;0.001 when compared with both thalassemia minor group 122.652 \u03bcg\/dl, 74.723 ng\/ml and control groups 127.438 \u03bcg\/dl and 63.150 ng\/ml respectively.\n                    <ns3:italic>C. albicans<\/ns3:italic>\n                    colony count in saliva was significantly elevated in beta-thalassemia major, as compared with beta-thalassemia minor group and control group. Conclusion Findings suggest that iron overload, which results from recurrent blood transfusions and causes immune dysfunction, contributes to higher risk of oral fungal infections in Beta-thalassemia patients compared with controls.\n                  <\/ns3:p>","DOI":"10.12688\/f1000research.162460.2","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2025,11,20]],"date-time":"2025-11-20T19:20:12Z","timestamp":1763666412000},"page":"555","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.12688\/f1000research.crossmark-policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":2,"title":["Prevalence of Candida albicans in the oral cavity of Beta Thalassemia Major and Thalassemia Minor Patients"],"prefix":"10.12688","volume":"14","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0009-0008-8874-769X","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Saba Sami","family":"Abd Al Wahab","sequence":"first","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Maha Adel","family":"Mahmood","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"2560","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2025,8,21]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"76-81","DOI":"10.47723\/kcmj.v13i1.130","article-title":"Iron chelation therapy in sickle cell\/beta thalassemia syndrome, a 2 years\u2019 extension study.","volume":"13","author":"H Al-Momen","year":"2017","journal-title":"Al-Kindy Coll. 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Cancer Prev."},{"key":"ref41","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"426-438","DOI":"10.1080\/16078454.2019.1599096","article-title":"Beta-thalassemia: renal complications and mechanisms: A narrative review.","volume":"24","author":"C Demosthenous","year":"2019","journal-title":"Hematology."},{"key":"ref43","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.6084\/m9.figshare.28399424.v1","author":"S Abd Al Wahab","year":"2025","journal-title":"figshare."}],"container-title":["F1000Research"],"original-title":[],"language":"en","link":[{"URL":"https:\/\/f1000research.com\/articles\/14-555\/v2\/xml","content-type":"application\/xml","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"text-mining"},{"URL":"https:\/\/f1000research.com\/articles\/14-555\/v2\/pdf","content-type":"application\/pdf","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"text-mining"},{"URL":"https:\/\/f1000research.com\/articles\/14-555\/v2\/iparadigms","content-type":"unspecified","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"similarity-checking"}],"deposited":{"date-parts":[[2025,11,20]],"date-time":"2025-11-20T19:20:29Z","timestamp":1763666429000},"score":1,"resource":{"primary":{"URL":"https:\/\/f1000research.com\/articles\/14-555\/v2"}},"subtitle":[],"short-title":[],"issued":{"date-parts":[[2025,8,21]]},"references-count":42,"URL":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.12688\/f1000research.162460.2","relation":{"has-version":[{"id-type":"doi","id":"10.12688\/f1000research.162460.1","asserted-by":"subject"}],"has-review":[{"id-type":"doi","id":"10.5256\/f1000research.186768.r407571","asserted-by":"subject"},{"id-type":"doi","id":"10.5256\/f1000research.186768.r407571","asserted-by":"object"}]},"ISSN":["2046-1402"],"issn-type":[{"value":"2046-1402","type":"electronic"}],"subject":[],"published":{"date-parts":[[2025,8,21]]},"assertion":[{"value":"Indexed","URL":"https:\/\/f1000research.com\/articles\/14-555\/v2#article-reports","order":0,"name":"referee-status","label":"Referee status","group":{"name":"current-referee-status","label":"Current Referee Status"}},{"value":"10.5256\/f1000research.186768.r407571, Anwer Faisal, Mustansiriyah University, Baghdad, 22 Aug 2025, version 2, indexed","URL":"https:\/\/f1000research.com\/articles\/14-555\/v2#referee-response-407571","order":0,"name":"referee-response-407571","label":"Referee Report","group":{"name":"article-reports","label":"Article Reports"}},{"value":"10.5256\/f1000research.178665.r392347, Pradana Zaky Romadhon, Airlangga University, Surabaya, 13 Aug 2025, version 1, indexed","URL":"https:\/\/f1000research.com\/articles\/14-555\/v1#referee-response-392347","order":1,"name":"referee-response-392347","label":"Referee Report","group":{"name":"article-reports","label":"Article Reports"}},{"value":"<b>Saba Abd Al Wahab<\/b>; \n<i>Posted: 16 Aug 2025<\/i>; We sincerely thank the reviewer for their positive feedback on the structure and clarity of our article and for their valuable suggestion to enhance the manuscript.  \n<b>Question<\/b>: Candida albicans levels, which were also assessed as quantitative data, are not described in the Methods section. The authors should include a clear description of the methodology used to obtain quantitative data for C. albicans \n<b><i>Response<\/i><\/b>\n<i>: <\/i>We appreciate the reviewer\u2019s question. The quantitative\n<i> assessment of Candida albicans levels was performed by determining the viable colony count in colony-forming units per milliliter (cfu\/ml). <\/i>  \n<b>Question<\/b>: In the Discussion section, a brief explanation should be provided regarding the mechanism by which iron overload impairs the immune system, making thalassemia patients more susceptible to&nbsp;\n<i>Candida albicans<\/i>&nbsp;infections. \n<b><i>Response<\/i><\/b>: We appreciate the reviewer\u2019s thoughtful suggestion to include a brief explanation of the mechanism by which iron overload impairs the immune system, increasing susceptibility to \n<i>Candida albicans<\/i> infections in thalassemia patients. Additional information has been added to the revised manuscript  \n<b>Question <\/b>The authors are also encouraged to elaborate on the limitations that may have contributed to the lack of significant correlation among the investigated markers (iron, ferritin, and&nbsp;\n<i>C. albicans<\/i>&nbsp;levels) across the T major, T minor, and control groups.  \n<b><i>Response: <\/i><\/b>We thank the reviewer for their valuable suggestion to elaborate on the limitations that may have contributed to the lack of significant correlation among iron, ferritin, and \n<i>Candida albicans<\/i> levels across the T Major, T Minor, and control groups. To address this, we propose adding the following paragraph at the end of the Discussion section (The current study has a limitation that may explain the absence of significant correlations between iron, ferritin, and Candida albicans levels across the study. The relatively small sample size (n=30 per group) may have limited statistical power to detect weaker correlations. Additionally, variability in transfusion frequency, chelation therapy, and individual immune responses among T Major patients could have confounded the relationship between iron, ferritin, and fungal levels).","URL":"https:\/\/f1000research.com\/articles\/14-555\/v2#referee-comment-14369","order":2,"name":"referee-comment-14369","label":"Referee Comment","group":{"name":"article-reports","label":"Article Reports"}},{"value":"The author(s) declared that no grants were involved in supporting this work","order":3,"name":"grant-information","label":"Grant Information"},{"value":"This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Licence, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.","order":0,"name":"copyright-info","label":"Copyright"}]}}