Question
Hello, I have been diagnosed with thalassemia gene typing (17 variants). How should I deal with it?
Answer
Infants born with thalassemia gene typing often show no symptoms until they are between 3 to 12 months old, when they begin to exhibit chronic progressive anemia, pale complexion, enlarged liver and spleen, poor growth, and mild jaundice. Symptoms become more pronounced as they grow older. Mild cases may have no symptoms or only mild anemia, with an enlarged spleen only slightly or not at all. The course of the disease is generally good, and patients can survive into old age. The condition is often overlooked and is typically discovered during family screening of severe cases. Laboratory tests show mild morphological changes in mature red blood cells, increased osmotic fragility of red blood cells compared to normal or decreased, and hemoglobin electrophoresis indicates an elevated HbA2 content (0.035 to 0.060), which is a characteristic of this type.