Alloantibody formatıon and dıstrıbutıon of Thalassemia Major patıents

Thalassemia is a hereditary disorder that is characterized by minimal production of globulin chains or restricted production of more globulin chains, that constitute hemoglobin structure. Development of alloimmünization against erythrocyte antigens is an important problem in thalassemic patients. In this study our aim is detecting ratio of erythrocyte antibody frequency and try to find out whether the frequency of antibody production is enough to apply phenotypic transfusion. The study is carried out at Blood Bank in Gaziantep University Medicine Faculty between January 2007-June 2008. Totally 86 patients, 72 of them at pediatric age group, 14 of them at adult age group are taken into study. At the beginning of the study 5 of 72 pediatric patients(6.9%), 3 of 14 adult patients (21.4%) and totally 8 of 86 patients (9.3%) have been found IAT test positive. During 18 months study period among the IAT test negative cases, four of them were converted to positive. At the and of the duration 9 of 72 pediatric cases (12.5%), totally 12 of 86 cases (13.9%) IAT test is found positive. No significant difference is detected about alloantibody development between men and women. The distribution for pediatric age group is an follows; Anti-K 44.4%, anti-C 22.2%, anti-E 11.1%, anti-D 11.1% and anti-Fya 11.1%. Only one of the antibodies can be determined while there are more than one antibody profile in one case. In adult age group; Anti-E was found 66.6%, anti-D was found 33.3%. Finally antibody screening tests must be done regularly to the thalassemic patients and new perspectives must be observed for transfusion politics, leukocyte filtrasyon and phenotypic equalization.