The spectrum of thalassemia syndromes and abnormal haemoglobins in adult patients based on HPLC in a tertiary care centre of Punjab, India

Abstract

In the present study adult patients with anemia were analysed for thalassemia syndromes and other haemoglobino pathies by using high performance liquid chromatography. A total of 102 Patients’ blood samples were evaluated for complete blood count, RBC indices, reticulocyte count and peripheral blood film for morphology. For the confirmation and characterization of hemoglobinopathy, ‘BIORAD VARIANT II’ of HPLC instrument with CDM software was utilized. 60.8% of the patients were females while the remaining 39.2% were males. The results of this study showed that 79.4% of patients were having a normal hemoglobin while 17% patients showed the prevalence of thalassemia trait. Two cases of hereditary persistence of fetal hemoglobin (HPFH) were seen and one case each of sickle cell-beta thalassemia (HbSThal) and hemoglobin D-Iran (HD-Iran) were seen. It was observed that 65.4% of the patients without thalassemia trait had normocytic normochromic type of anemia. In contrast, all the patients with thalassemia trait and HbSThal had microcytic hypochromic anemia. This association was statistically significant with hemoglobinopathies mostly having microcytic hypochromic. The present findings show high performance liquid chromatography forms a rapid, accurate, and reproducible tool for the early detection and management of hemoglobinopathies and variants.