Structural defects of the erythrocyte wall, enzyme defects and haemoglobinopathies may cause intrinsic haemolysis. We assessed the clinical and laboratory patterns of 44 patients with hereditary haemolytic anemias. Hereditary sphaerocytosis (HS) and thalassaemia minor and intermedia were equally represented with a mild male predominance in each group. Patients suffering from HS showed more seve...

We describe the management and clinical outcome of pregnancies among 100 Greek Cypriot women with thalassaemia: 88 with thalassaemia major and 12 with thalassaemia intermedia. A total of 152 successful pregnancies and 161 deliveries were included. All patients had endocrine assessment and frequent ferritin measurements. Multiple successful pregnancies included 7 twins and 1 triple pregnancy. Pr...

Treatment of chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection in transfusion-dependent beta-thalassaemia major patients is complicated by existing hepatic siderosis and the fear of ribavirin-associated haemolysis. We evaluated the efficacy and side-effects of combination interferon-alpha (INF) and ribavirin therapy for HCV-infected thalassaemia patients. A total of 17 patients were enrolled (10 nonres...

Thalassaemia is one of the most common genetic diseases worldwide, with at least 60,000 severely affected individuals born every year. Individuals originating from tropical and subtropical regions are most at risk. Disorders of haemoglobin synthesis (thalassaemia) and structure (eg, sickle-cell disease) were among the first molecular diseases to be identified, and have been investigated and cha...

Thalassaemia is one of the most common inherited genetic disorders prevalent worldwide. In India, certain communities were identified with high risk of beta thalassaemia. There are more than 200 different types of beta thalassaemia mutations worldwide. The most common beta thalassaemia mutation, IVS 1-5 (G→C) is being analyzed here to get information whether this common mutation is prevailing a...

Background and Aims: Hepatitis C virus is one of the viral infections which is mainly transmitted by blood transfusion. Patients with thalassaemia frequently need blood transfusion and are in danger of HCV infection. In most cases of infection (85%) the virus evades the immune system and establishes a chronic infection that may lead to cirrhosis and liver carcinoma. Liver is the main site of HC...

In this study various abnormal haemoglobin fractions on HPLC were observed in 158 cases out of the total 300 screened paediatric anaemic cases. Of the 300 paediatric cases, samples analyzed on CE-HPLC for haemoglobinopathies, maximum 67 (22.33%) cases were diagnosed as S-β double heterozygous, 39(13%) as sickle cell trait, 27 (9 %) as β-thalassaemia major, 10 (3.33 %) as sickle cell disease, 05...

INTRODUCTION Thalassemia could interfere with some assays for haemoglobin A1c (HbA1c) measurement, therefore, it is useful to be able to screen for thalassemia while measuring HbA1c. We used Capillarys 2 Flex Piercing (Capillarys 2FP) HbA1c programme to simultaneously measure HbA1c and screen for thalassemia. MATERIALS AND METHODS Samples from 498 normal controls and 175 thalassemia patients ...

BACKGROUND Health Related Quality of Life (HRQoL) studies on children with chronic illness such as thalassaemia are limited. We conducted the first study to investigate if children with thalassaemia have a lower quality of life in the four dimensions as measured using the PedsQL 4.0 generic Scale Score: physical, emotional, social and role (school) functioning compared to the healthy controls a...