Serum proteins in cyanotic and acyanotic congenital heart disease

The serum proteins of patients with cyanotic and acyanotic congenital heart disease of different etiologies have been partitioned by paper electrophoresis and compared to those of nutritionally normal patients without heart disease. A lesser concentration of the serum albumins and a greater concentration of the alpha-1 and beta globulins was found in the patients with congenital heart disease than in the control subjects. There was a further statistically significant greater concentration of the beta globulins in the patients with cyanotic congenital heart disease than in those of the acyanotic group. The sequential changes with age of the concentrations of the total proteins and the electrophoretic fractions were not altered by the presence of chronic hypoxemia and right-to-left shunting of blood from the lung.