Prevalence of β-thalassemic Patients Associated With Consanguinity and Anti-HCV - Antibody Positivity – A Cross Sectional Study

A cross sectional study was carried out at various hospitals of Faisalabad city. The aim of current study was to investigate the prevalence of β-thalassemia disease in hospital population related to age, consanguinity and anti-HCV antibody positivity. For this purpose, 300 patients were interviewed for the different parameters including specific type of β-thalassemia disease, their family history together with information about their sibs and offspring. Results demonstrated that males were significantly (P<0.001) more affected than females. In total hospital population, β-thalassemia major (97%) was more frequent than thalassemia intermedia (7%). The highest representation of β-thalassemic patients (34.33%) was observed between 3-5 years of age groups, whereas affected patients were the highest from 1 birth order (32.90%) and the lowest from 8 birth order (0.64%). The prevalence of anti-HCV antibodies positivity was 65.0% among all β-thalassemic patients. Distribution of β-thalassemia patients among different surnames showed the highest percentage in Rajpoots (25.62%) and lowest in Baloach (3.30%). In consanguine studies, outcome of first cousin marriages result was higher β-thalassemia affliction than in unrelated outcomes. The coefficient of inbreeding among parents of β-thalassemic patient (F=0.0455) was also observed high. In conclusion, higher total consanguinity rate and coefficient of inbreeding among thalassemic patients indicated genetic basis of the disease. However, higher anti-HCV positivity among patients reflects the poor facilities of transfusion.