Thalassemia
This disease is one of the serious genetic diseases that require treatment throughout the life of the patient through the blood transfusion to him every month in addition to taking drugs that help the body to get rid of the amounts of iron accumulated in the blood, and it is called with the name Thalassemia, a Greek word meaning the basin of the Mediterranean as this disease spreads widely in this geographical region, and moves from parents infected with the disease to children so that the body is unable to produce the hemoglobin blood and therefore the negative impact on the biological processes that the blood is responsible for such as transfer of oxygen and nutrients to the cells of the body and rid them from the waste and carbon dioxide, and in this article we will know the causes of thalassemia.
Causes of thalassemia
The causes of this type of anemia, a chronic blood disease, are usually caused by two main causes, genetic inheritance and genetic defect, but each of them is divided into two groups according to the protein chain of hemoglobin, consisting mainly of two protein chains of the type Alpha Globin and two protein chains of the type of Beta Globin and the reasons are divided into:
- Genetic defect: ( It causes the gene responsible for producing hemoglobin to be defective in its normal production)
- Alpha-type of thalassemia is caused by a defect in the protein chain of alpha hemoglobin and causes the fetus to die in the mother’s womb or shortly after birth.
- Beta-type of thalassemia is caused by a defect in the protein chain of beta hemoglobin and causes less serious symptoms than type 1.
- Genetic inheritance: (The transmission of genetic trait from parents to children, especially in the marriage of relatives, and the causes are divided to)
- Major thalassemia caused by the transmission of the gene from both parents infected to the child; and he becomes infected with symptoms after a period of birth, and a small thalassemia caused by the transmission of the gene to the child from the mother or the father carrying the disease, and the child becomes carrying the disease as well, not infected with it, and has no symptoms.
Symptoms of thalassemia
The nature, severity and appearance of the symptoms vary depending on the main cause of the disease and the disease category. These symptoms can be summarized as follows:
- Small Thalassemia Any person with the disease does not show any symptoms with feeling tired, pale face and a mild anemia can be treated with iron tablets and iron fixation medicine.
- Disorders of the bone and its formation, and therefore a disorder in the process of growth in the child, and spleen hypertrophy for the first type of genetic defect Beta.
- People with major genetic anemia suffer from acute anemia, facial blemishes, enlarged heart, kidneys, liver, and jaundice, loss of appetite, delayed puberty, and slow growth.
