Is thalassemia minor serious?

Thalassemia is a disease caused by an autosomal recessive genetic defect. There is currently no complete cure for this disease. Even if mild thalassemia occurs, regular methods should be used for treatment, such as drug therapy, surgical treatment, etc. In daily life, emphasis should be placed on nourishment, dietary adjustment, and adequate rest. Let us learn about this aspect below.

Is thalassemia minor serious?

Thalassemia is a type of hemolytic anemia caused by autosomal genetic defects, which leads to impaired globin chain synthesis, resulting in insufficient or complete lack of one or several globins, making red blood cells easily lysed and destroyed. Because the disease was first discovered in the Mediterranean, it was named thalassemia. my country's Natural Science Terminology Review Committee recommends that the name of this disease be thalassemia. It is still customarily called thalassemia, or thalassemia for short. The globin in normal adult hemoglobin is composed of four peptide chains. This disease is caused by the deletion or point mutation of the globin gene. There are four types of peptide chains that make up globin, namely α, β, γ, and δ chains, which are encoded by their corresponding genes. The deletion or point mutation of these genes can cause synthetic disorders of various peptide chains, resulting in changes in the composition of hemoglobin. Thalassemia is usually divided into four types: α, β, γ and δ, among which β and α thalassemia are more common.

Treatment of thalassemia

Thalassemias are a group of inherited microcytic hemolytic anemias. It is very harmful to people, especially pregnant women, and may even affect the fetus. Therefore, patients with thalassemia must receive timely treatment, find out the cause, and treat it accordingly. At present, the treatment method for thalassemia patients is mainly Western medicine. The specific methods are as follows: 1. Drug treatment: pay attention to rest and nutrition; actively prevent infection; appropriately supplement folic acid and vitamin E; blood transfusion and iron removal - still one of the important treatment methods; iron chelators - commonly used deferoxamine, can increase iron excretion from urine and feces. 2. Surgical treatment: splenectomy; hematopoietic stem cell transplantation - currently the only method that can cure severe β-thalassemia. 3. Other special therapies: gene activation therapy.