Azoospermia in a patient with sickle cell disease treated with hydroxyurea.

Haematologica vol. 85(11):November 2000 quent in Hungary, Turkey and Lebanon3 where it represents between 3 to 7% of the β-thalassemias. However it is very scarce in the island of Sardinia. This mutation was also reported in inland countries of Europe and the Middle East such as Czechoslovakia and Azerbaijan,3 where it represents 14-16% of the molecular abnormalities detected in β-thalassemias. On the Iberian peninsula, to our knowledge, only a single case of IVS II-1 among 88 thalassemics has been reported in a study carried out in the north of Portugal.4 There have been no reports until now of this molecular abnormality in Spain. This abnormality, according to our experience in molecular diagnosis of β-thalassemia, represents 1 out of 40 β thalassemics.5 Although this molecular abnormality is a β0, its rarity lessens its clinical importance. However, awareness of its existence increases the spectrum of known mutations in Spain and, consequently, in the Iberian Peninsula.