An Epidemiological and Clinical Survey of Patients with β-Thalassemia in Dezful in 2015

Regular blood transfusions in patients with hereditary hemolytic anemia, especially thalassemia, increase the survival of most patients but also may result in infection with viruses like hepatitis. In order to identify these diseases and other complications in people with thalassemia, this study aimed to investigate epidemiological and clinical findings in patients with thalassemia in Dezful in 2015.
In this descriptive-analytic study, data were collected from medical records in Dezful thalassemia Clinic by the census method. The collected data included gender, age, location, ethnicity, blood type, transfused blood type, time between blood transfusions, medications, vaccinations, underlying diseases, and operations and their time.
The records of 174 thalassemia patients with a mean age of 23.60 years were evaluated. Of these, 23 patients (13.2%) had thalassemia intermediate and 151 (86.8%) had thalassemia major. The last mean serum ferritin was 2760.60. Independent T test showed a significant relationship between the type of thalassemia and age at diagnosis (P=0.000). There was a significant positive correlation between age and blood transfusion intervals so that the intervals increased with age (P=0.004) (r=0.21).
The high mean age in the center compared to other studies as well as the low frequency of side effects indicate the effectiveness of new treatments and increased survival of these patients.