Authors
Abstract
Background and Propose: Thalassemia major is the most common hemolytic anemia, in Iran and the world over, which requires regular transfusion. Repeated transfusion leads to iron overload in the body and various complications if chelation therapy is absent or irregular; the most common complications include cardiac diseases, endocrine disorder and infections such as HIV and hepatitis. This study was conducted, therefore, to investigate the complications of Thalassemia major and factors affecting the onset of these complications.
Methods and Materials: In this cross-sectional retrospectivestudy, 806 thalassemic patients, admitted to the Cooley's ward at Shahid Dastghaib Hospital in Shiraz, Iran, were studied using a structured questionnaire through enumeration method. The statistical population was all thalassemia major cases from Shiraz province. In addition to the age of occurrence, demographic information, age of onset and type of onset and type of transfusion as well as chelation therapy method were specifically recorded. The diagnosis was made by specialist medical doctors. Obtained data were analyzed through description and analytical statistics (or confidence interval chisquare test, independent t-test and pearson correlation coefficient).
Results: The subjects age ranged from 1 to 43 years and their mean age was 15.34±6.82. The prevalence of spleenectomy, cardiac diseases, hypogonadism, hypothyroidism, hypoparathyroidism, diabetes mellitus and HCV were 28.7% (onset age 11.46±5.7), 15.4% (onset age 16.43±5.4), 14.5% (onset age 18.42±3.6), 2.4% (onset age 15.83±3.5), 6.9% (onset age 16.98±4.5), 7.5% (onset age 17.19±4.8) and 14.4% respectively. There were significant relationships between prevalence and onset age of some complications and variables such as sex, mother's education and age of chelation therapy onset (p
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