Results of screening 720 thalassemia patients in Zhanjiang region(single-tube method)

Objective To explore the joint application value of osmotic fragility test(single-tube method) and erythrocyteindices(MCV,MCH,RDW) in screening for thalassemia.Methods Osmotic fragility test and MCV,MCH,RDW of blood cell analysis were applied for screening of thalassemia.Results The 120 abnormal subjects were detected from 720 subjects by using osmotic fragility test(16.7%).Reduction of MCV,MCH and normal RDW were observed in 115 subjects,accounted for16.0% of total.Relatively good consistency of the two methods was noticed.Among the 120 normal cases 85 were thalassemia carriers or heterozygous detected by thalassemia gene diagnosis(50 cases of alpha thalassemia,35 cases of beta-thalassemia),accounted for 11.80%.Conclusion Joint application of osmotic fragility test(single-tube method) and erythrocyteindices for screening thalassemia can early identify high-risk perosns,and reduce birthrate of severe thalassemia children.