Abstract

 Background and Objectives

  Thalassemia major is one of the most common genetic blood disorders that passes from parents to children . Since Fars province is one of the most common locations of thalassemia in our country. It seems that the present study can be helpful by identifying main non-clinical factors of the disease.

 Materials and Methods

  This cross sectional study was done on registered data of less than 12 year old major thalassemia patients in Fars province by census method in 1997-2010 . Underlying causes of thalassemia are divided into three groups: S₁ cases due to hardware problems, S₂ cases due to parents carelessness without having a history, and S₃ patients born to parents who married when genetic tests were not routine. Data were analyzed by using SPSS16 and ANOVA tests.

 Results

  Analysis showed that S₁ with 48 persons (15.38%)`with the mean age of 5.6 ± 3.2, S₂ with71 persons (22.75%) with the mean age of 6.8 ± 1.2, and S₃ with193 person (61.85%) with the mean age of 8.8 ± 3.30 were the main groups of thalassemia . The least incidence rate was 0.13 per 10000 in 2010 .

 Conclusions

 With identifying the main underlying causes of major thalassemia regardless of its main cause which is herediatry from parents, considering levels and different consequences of these causes, and high efficiency of genetic tests before marriage, effective steps can be taken to reduce health-social and economic problems of thalassemia.