Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
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Query: UMLS:C0019045 (hemoglobinopathies)
 2,704 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

The prevelance of IDA in industrialized countries has declined in recent decades, but there has been little change in the worldwide prevalence. IDA is currently estimated to affect more than 500 million people. Recent studies have indicated that anemia per se, the most common manifestation of iron deficiency, is less important from a public health standpoint than liabilities associated with tissue iron deficiency. The most important of the latter are an impairment in psychomotor development and cognitive function in infants and preschoolers, a deficit in work performance in adults, and an increase in the frequency of low birth weight, prematurity, and perinatal mortality in pregnancy. There have been several recent advances in combatting nutritional iron deficiency. One of the major problems has been in distinguishing iron deficiency from other causes of anemia seen epidemiologically such as malaria, HIV infection, chronic inflammation, hemoglobinopathies, and protein energy malnutrition. When combined with serum ferritin and hemoglobin determinations, the serum transferrin receptor assay is a valuable addition in epidemiologic surveys because it provides a quantitative measure of functional iron deficiency and it distinguishes true IDA from the anemia of chronic disease. The most difficult challenge is to develop effective methods of supplying iron to large segments of a population. Supplementation with iron tablets is suitable for only brief periods of need such as during pregnancy. The poor compliance with existing supplementation programs is believed to be due mainly to the gastrointestinal side effects of oral iron which can be eliminated by the use of a gastric delivery system. The most effective long-term strategy is to increase the intake of bioavailable iron in the diet. The customary approach has been to fortify a food staple such as wheat, rice, sugar, or salt, and thereby increase the iron intake of the entire population. However, because of concerns about the risk of cancer and heart disease in individuals with high iron stores, there is an increasing reluctance to supply iron to individuals who do not require it. A more effective strategy is to fortify food vehicles that are targeted to segments of the population at greatest risk of iron deficiency such as infants and school children. Because of the strong inhibitory properties of diets in regions of the world where iron deficiency is most prevalent, the use of NaFeEDTA has important advantages for food fortification.
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PMID:Iron deficiency: the global perspective. 788 26

An attempt was made to create an expert system with sufficient accuracy to diagnose classes of anemia and report presumptive diagnoses directly on the hematology form. The system should simulate the processes of human experts who can reliably achieve diagnostic separability by pattern analysis. A hybrid expert system combining rule-based and artificial neural network (ANN) models was constructed to evaluate microcytic anemia in a 3-layered program using hematocrit (HCT), mean corpuscular volume (MCV), and coefficient of variation of cell distribution width (RDWcv) as inputs. These measurements are available as standard output on most hematology analyzers. Three categories of microcytic anemia were considered, iron deficiency (IDA), hemoglobinopathy (HEM), and anemia of chronic disease (ACD). A novel feature of the model is its construction and training using human expert input alone. Model construction is described in detail. The model's performance was evaluated with actual case data. It was successful in correctly classifying 96.5% of 473 documented cases of microcytic anemia and anemia of chronic disease. It thus exhibits sufficient accuracy for it to be considered for use in reporting microcytic anemia diagnoses on hematology forms.
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PMID:An expert system to diagnose anemia and report results directly on hematology forms. 868 71

Anemia is a common health problem but control of anemia in pregnant women is less well studied. The purpose was to study prevalence of anemia in young pregnant women, correlate with indices and study significance of identification of hemoglobinopathies. Of the 120 pregnant women, Hb was less than 8 g% in 58 (44.2%). Seventy-eight (65%) had iron deficiency, 22 (18.3%) had dimorphic anemia, and 14 (11.6%) had hemolytic anemia. Megaloblastic anemia was present in 6 (5%). Of hemolytic anemia, 50% were thalassemia trait. MCV< 76 fl was observed in 88 (73.3 %) cases. MCV<76 fl and MCH < 27 pg had 100 % sensitivity and 28.7 % specificity for screening of beta-thalassemia trait. NESTROFT had comparable sensitivity but lower specificity (14.9%). Sixty-three percent (60/78) of IDA had increased RDW whereas 78 % (11/14) of hemolytic anemia had RDW value in normal range (p value< 0.05). MCV/RBC of <14 was more specific parameter (96.8%) for beta-thalassemia trait. Four high-risk couples were identified. Thus, moderate to severe anemia was observed in most pregnant women. Hemoglobinopathies should be screened in antenatal clinics to identify the couples that would need a prenatal test. A lower MCV/RBC with RDWin the normal range may be useful in screening for thalassemia trait in pregnant women.
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PMID:Spectrum of anemia in pregnant Indian women and importance of antenatal screening. 1700 88

The role of RET-Y (the mean value of the forward-scattered light histogram within the reticulocyte population), soluble transferrin receptor (sTfR), and the ratio of soluble transferrin receptor to log10 ferritin (sTfR-F index) in discriminating hemoglobinopathies remains unclear. For that purpose, a cohort of 141 patients with microcytic, hypochromic anemia, along with 58 healthy individuals, were evaluated in the present study. Patients were divided into 4 groups: A (beta-thalassemia trait, n=62), B (iron-deficiency anemia [IDA], n=41), C (alpha-thalassemia trait, n=10) and D (hemoglobin O-Arab trait, n=28). Whole blood count, RET-Y, ferritin, sTfR, and sTfR-F index were performed for each individual. Diagnostic efficiency was analyzed by receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves. Youden index was used for the estimation of the cutoff points and the associated values for sensitivity and 1-specificity. Statistically significant differences were observed for RET-Y, sTfR-F, and sTfR-F index between patients and healthy individuals, except for sTfR-F index of group C; between groups A, D, and B for RET-Y; between groups C, D, and B for sTfR; and between groups A, C, D, and B for sTfR-F index. ROC curves were constructed considering IDA as a positive case and indicated a very good diagnostic ability for sTfR-F index (area under the ROC curve [AUCROC]=0.938, cutoff point >2.19) in differentiating IDA from hemoglobinopathies in the study population. When the beta-thalassemia trait was considered as a positive case, ROC curves demonstrated a very good diagnostic efficiency for RET-Y (AUCROC=0.894, cutoff point <1411.8 AU). In populations where hemoglobinopathies are frequent, the full blood count, including the new parameter RET-Y, and sTfR-F index provide an extra, simple, and accurate tool for diagnosis and genetic consulting.
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PMID:Innovative parameters RET-Y, sTfR, and sTfR-F index in patients with microcytic, hypochromic anemia--their special value for hemoglobinopathies. 1757 84