Hematological data analysis in children with thalassemia trait or hemoglobin H disease in Taiwan

In the past several years, we have collected 91 cases diagnosed as beta-thalassemia trait, 94 cases as alpha-thalassemia trait and 43 cases as hemoglobin H disease. The ages ranged from 6 months to 15 years. The hematological data were analyzed. We calculated the mean +/- SD for each item of the erythrocyte indices (RBC, Hgb, Hct, MCV, MCH, MCHC, +/- RDW) and the Hb electrophoretic results (Hb A, Hb A2, Hb F, Hb H & Bart's) in each group, and tabulated them. Then, comparisons were made between beta and alpha-thalassemia traits or between the thalassemia trait and hemoglobin H disease. We found that each of the mean values for Hgb, Hct, MCV and MCH for children with the beta-thalassemia trait was significantly lower than that for children with the alpha-thalassemia trait. The mean MCV value of the beta-thalassemia trait group was 60.7 +/- 3.4 fl, and 87% of the MCV values in this group ranged from 55 to 65 fl. The mean MCV value for the alpha-thalassemia trait group was 63.3 +/- 3.3 fl, and 56% of the MCV values in this group ranged from 60-65 fl. The MCV values for all of the 185 children studied with either the beta- or alpha-thalassemia trait ranged from 54 to 71 fl, and were far below the normal ranges for MCV values for each age-specific group. The mean percentage of deviation of MCV from normal was greater than that of Hgb in both the beta- and alpha-thalassemia trait groups. A comparison of those with beta-thalassemia trait 6 years old and under and those over 6 years showed that both the mean values of RBC and Hgb were higher in the older subgroup, while the mean MCV values did not show any significant differences between these 2 subgroups.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)