Distribution of BMI, Blood Groups, and Secretory Status Among Iraqi Patients with Beta Thalassemia Major

Abstract

Background: Beta-thalassemia is an inherited disorder of hemoglobin synthesis characterized by deficient synthesis of the ß-globin chain that causes severe anemia. One of the complication is internal organ damage due to iron over load resulted from long life blood transfusion leading to growth retardation, delay of sexual maturation, and later involvement of the heart, liver, and endocrine system.Aim of study: This study was designed to determine the status of Iraqi TM patients in respect to their body mass index (BMI), blood groups, as well as secretory status in comparison to healthy subjects as control. Methodology: Sixty nine TM patients were recruited from the thalassemia center / Ibn-Albalady hospital/ Baghdad/ Iraq, and twenty normal subjects with matched age and sex. The height and weight of all subjects was measured to determine the BMI categories, blood and saliva samples were obtained to determine blood groups and secretory status respectively.Results: Non-significant difference in the distribution of blood groups was recorded between patients and normal subjects, while frequency of non-secretors was significantly elevated (P= 0.019) from 20% among normal subjects up to 49.3% among TM patients. However, BMI was significantly decreased (P ˂ 0.00001) from (23.2 ± 5.1 kg/m²) with only 5% underweight cases in control group down to (17.9 ± 2.8 kg/m²) with 14.5% underweight cases among TM patients.Conclusion: This study suggested that   status in TM patients may play an important role as risk factor that associated with severity of iron overload complications and need further investigation.

Keywords: Beta-thalassemia, Blood groups, Secretory status, Body mass index