BACKGROUND Thalassemia and hemoglobin (Hb) variants are the most common hereditary red blood cell disorders worldwide. Alpha-thalassemia and alpha-globin variants are caused by mutations of the alpha-globin genes (HBA2 and HBA1), resulting in impaired alpha-globin production and structurally abnormal globin, respectively. Clinical severity of alpha-thalassemia correlates with the number of affected alpha-globin genes, yielding a spectrum of clinical manifestations from mild to severe anemia.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIntroduction: Prenatal diagnosis of thalassemia disease was usually based on invasive technique. Noninvasive diagnosis using cell-free fetal DNA (cff-DNA) was described with various laboratory techniques. The aim of this study was to identify the performance of dPCR for analyzing cff-DNA in maternal plasma to diagnose fetal beta-thalassemia diseases.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMutations in the KLF1 gene, which encodes a transcription factor playing a role in erythropoiesis, have recently been demonstrated to be a rare cause of hereditary haemolytic anaemia. We described the genotypic and phenotypic spectra of four unrelated families with compound heterozygous class 2/class 3 KLF1 mutations. All patients had p.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFHemoglobin (Hb) H/Constant Spring disease is a common nondeletional Hb H disease, typically causing a more severe phenotype than the deletional Hb H disease counterpart. Hb Tak, resulting from a dinucleotide insertion (+AC) at codon 146 of beta-globin gene, has an increased oxygen affinity and usually presents with polycythemia. We studied a case of a 4-year-old Thai boy with a severe, early-onset anemia.
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