Prevalence of Metabolic Syndrome and Risk Factors for Cardiovascular Disease in Hemophilia Patients Compared to a Control Group in South Khorasan, Iran

Hemophilia is a rare inherited sex-linked disease caused by the deficiency or lack of some blood coagulation factors. The severity varies depending on the levels of these factors in the blood.

Therefore, this study aimed at determining the prevalence of metabolic syndrome and risk factors of cardiovascular disease in patients with hemophilia compared to a control group in 2015.

A case-control study was done on all hemophilia patients referring to the Birjand University of Medical Sciences (n = 91). Healthy subjects with no hemophilia were selected using systematic random sampling from healthy individuals in Birjand City, who were matched in terms of age and sex. The data were entered into SPSS19 software. The significance level of less than 0.05 was considered in this study.

The mean age was 34.11 ± 14.68 and 33.72 ± 13.46 years in the case and control groups, respectively. The rate of metabolic syndrome was 12.1% in the control group and 4.4% in the hemophilia group. The results of Mann-Whitney U test showed a significant difference between the two groups in terms of TG (P = 0.016) and LDL (P < 0.001), and the waist circumference was significantly higher (P = 0.001) in the control group than in the hemophilia group.

In the present study, the prevalence of metabolic syndrome was significantly lower among hemophilia patients than in the control group. The prevalence of diabetes and hypertriglyceridemia was significantly lower in hemophilia patients than in the control group (healthy subjects).