Background. Nontransfusion dependent thalassemia (NTDT) is a milder form of thalassemia that does not require regular transfusion. It is associated with many complications, which differ from that found in transfusion-dependent thalassemia (TDT). Currently available information is mostly derived from beta-NTDT; consequently, more data is needed to describe complications found in the alpha-NTDT f...

In this study we determined serum IL-8 levels in 18 untransfused patients with beta-thalassemia intermedia and in 14 subjects affected by HbH disease. As reported in polytransfused homozygous beta-thalassemia, untransfused beta-thalassemia and HbH disease show significantly (p < 0.005) higher serum IL-8 levels than normal controls. Our data suggests that there could be an intrinsic cause for th...

Thalassemias are a group of inherited disorders that are characterized by decreased production of the alpha or beta globin chains. The amount of the produced normal hemoglobin within the red blood cells correlates with the severity of the symptoms. Fetuses with alpha-thalassemia major usually die. Children with beta-thalassemia major are usually dependent on repeated blood transfusions. Splenec...

objective: this study was designed to investigate rbc indices and hba2 levels in parents of major beta-thalassemia patients to detect possible silent beta- thalassemia carriers and examine its potential impact on the premarital genetic counseling. materials and methods: this cross sectional study was performed at children medical center from 2004 to 2006. after genetic counseling and getting in...

Result: Two thousand questionnaires were received; nevertheless, not all of them did answer all the questions. One thousand two hundred ninety-seven (65.1%) heard of beta thalassemia and 809 (40.5%) knew that both parents have to be carriers to have an affected child. One thousand five hundred forty-seven (77.8%) strongly agreed that premarital checking could prevent beta thalassemia. Females s...

INTRODUCTION Renal involvement is a rare complication of β-thalassemia. Both tubular and glomerular dysfunction might occur in these patients. The aim of this study was to evaluate and compare kidney function in the major, intermedia, and minor variants of β-thalassemia. MATERIALS AND METHODS Renal tubular and glomerular function of 72 patients with β-thalassemia (25 major, 23 intermedia, and...

The red cell distribution width (RDW) is an index of the variation in red cells size (anisocytosis). A study was conducted to examine the validity of using RDW in improving classification of microcytic anaemias. A total of 300 blood samples collected from a patient population aged 3 months to 55 years who were referred for haemoglobin electrophoresis were examined at the Aga Khan University Hos...

background patients with beta thalassemia suffer from increased susceptibility to infections and putridity plays a major role in the patient's morbidity and mortality. the risk of transfusion-transmitted viral infection is well known in these patients. however, there is dearth of information about the seroprevalence of herpes simplex virus (hsv) infection in patients with beta thalassemia in li...

peripheral blood t lymphocytes and their subsets were studied in 31 patients with beta thalassemia major (age 2-12years) and compared with 14 age-arid sex-matched healthy controls. three monoclonal antibodies (anti-cd3, anti cd-f, unti-cds) were simultaneously applied for detection of th (cd3-, cd4^), tsk (cd3+, cd8+) and th/ts ratio by flow-cytometry respectively. the results of this study sho...

conclusions in iran, hsct has been successfully adapted in routine clinical care. recently, new methods such as double cord blood and haploidentical transplantation have been used to treat many life-threatening diseases. results about 78.2% of the patients (2530 of 3237) remained alive between one to 211 months after stem cell transplantation. nearly, 21.8% (707) of our patients died after stem...