Serum creatinine and fat-free mass (lean body mass).

using this multiplex-PCR assay, suggests that the 22 and 22 alleles are much less common than the 22 allele in these populations (data not shown). These results are in agreement with the findings of Eng et al. (4 ). With the exception of the 22 total deletion spanning .300 kb of the a-globin cluster that was described in a Chinese family (3, 9), this multiplex-PCR assay detects all described Southeast Asian double-gene deletions in cis and the two most commonly observed single-gene deletions in a single reaction. This assay should simplify and substantially reduce the effort and cost of screening for a-thalassemia deletions in individuals of Southeast Asian origin.