Couple at Risk of Having a Child with Severe Thalassemia - ความเสี่ยงของคู่สมรสต่อการมีบุตรเป็นโรคธาลัสซีเมียชนิดรุนแรง

บทคัดย่อ

                Thalassemia screening in pregnant women and their spouses is important in preventing and controlling severe thalassemia.  Screenings consisted of osmotic fragility test (OF test) and dichlorophenol-indophenol precipitation test (DCIP test), covering the husbands of the pregnant women with positive screening results and gestational age less than 16 weeks. If both of them  had positive results, hemoglobin typing was recommended for diagnosis of thalassemia,abnormal hemoglobin, or b-thalassemia trait.  Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) in suspected cases of alpha-thalasemia 1 trait were done to identify risk of severe thalassemic carrier.  This investigation was a retrospective study which was aimed at determining results of thalassemia screening in pregnant women who had antenatal care at Pathum Thani Hospital during 4 years between 1st October 2003 and 30th September 2007.  The study revealed that of the 8,252 cases pregnant women screened for thalassemia 3,628 cases showed abnormality. Whereas abnormalities were observed in 510 of 1013 spouses.  Hemoglobin typing were done in 388 couples and 21 couples at risk were found.  Prenatal diagnosis (cordocentasis) were performed in 19 couples at risk and termination of pregnancy was done in only one case.

Key words:      screening, thalassemia, pregnant women, risk couples