Abstract
A representative sample of a thousand volunteer university students was screened for evidence of thalassemia minor.Complete blood counts using automated blood cell analysers and blood smears were examined. Patients having anemia, abnormal red cell indices or morphological features of thalassemia minor like hypochromia, microcytosis, target cells erythrocytosis and family history of thalassemia were then investigated for determination of HbA2 & HbF levels. Estimation of hemoglobin A2 was performed by micro-column chromatography while HbF was done using alkali denaturation. Seventy seven out of the thousand samples tested positive for thalassemia minor. They all showed a hemoglobin A2 of more than 3.6 percent and higher, associated in most of the cases with mild anemia, erythrocytosis and hypochromic microcytic red cells. We reached to the conclusion that the prevalence of thalassemia minor in our community, represented at college students at fertile age, to be 7.7%. We hope that similar figures could be made available in the future for the rest of Kurdistan and the bigger Iraq so that a national figure could be presented to the world literature.
 Key word : β-Thalassemia , hemoglobin A2 , hemoglobin
Highlights
The thalassemias are characterised by reduced synthesis of one or more of the globin chains that form the oxygen-carrying hemoglobin molecules found in red blood cells[18]
A complete blood count (CBC) using electronic blood analyzer that was coulter counter model (ACT diff Beckman with eighteen parameters) including (Hb, WBC count, platelet count,packed cell volume(PCV),mean cell volume(MCV), mean cell hemoglobin(MCH),mean cell hemoglobin concentration(MCHC),red blood cell(RBC) count. Those with low red cell indices (MCV, MCH and Mean cell hemoglobin concentration (MCHC)) and high RBC count were further investigated for determination of β-Thalassemia in Iraqi Kurdistan hemoglobin A2(HbA2) and hemoglobin F (HbF) levels
Ages of screened students ranged between 18-49 years with a mean age of 22.7 years (S.D±5.4)
Summary
The thalassemias are characterised by reduced synthesis of one or more of the globin chains that form the oxygen-carrying hemoglobin molecules found in red blood cells[18]. Β-thalassemia constitutes one of the most serious health problems worldwide, accounting for a major number of childhood deaths per year primarily in regions of the world endemic for malaria [19] It is an autosomal recessive disorder characterized by microcytosis and hemolytic anemia. It results from a variety of molecular defects that reduce (β+-thalassemia) or abolish (β0-thalassemia) the synthesis of the β-globin chains of hemoglobin[2]. Β-thalassemia mutations differ greatly in their phenotypic effects These could range from the extremely mild mutations, which are both clinically and phenotypically silent[3,20], to those which are rare and produce phenotype of thalassemia intermedia, even in the heterozygous state, due to the inheritance of a single copy of the abnormal gene[4]. In the future a national survey will utilize athe data available to provide a consensus figure for the prevalence of this extremely important genetic problem
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