D.T.S ( Donate To Save) Knowing Thalassemia Part-4

As of now we got some basic information on diagnosis, causes, symptoms & complication arises due to Thalassemia. This is the last issue of this series & here we have tried to highlight the available treatment for the Thalassemia affected kids.

The treatment mainly hovers around the severity & type of thalassemia. However prevention is the best medicine. If we there will be an awareness on genetic counselling occurred before marriage & before pregnancy then this disease can be avoided to a great extent.

People with mild to moderate thalassemia in alpha & beta category generally require no treatment or very less treatment. However people with moderate to severe thalassemia require aggressive treatments.

Basically the treatment part for thalassemia is divided in to 2 ways .

1. Palliative Treatment
2. Curative Treatment

Palliative Treatment: These types of treatments basically designed to relieve symptoms & improve quality of life of patients. It could be used at any point of time of the illness. This type of treatment is basically of 4 types.

• Blood Transfusion: People with mild to moderate thalassemia generally goes for this therapy. Every seating generally is of 1-4 hrs & repeated every 120 days. This is because life span of RBC is of 120 days. Blood transfusions allow you to feel better, enjoy normal activities, and live into adulthood. This treatment is lifesaving, but it's expensive and carries a risk of transmitting infections and viruses (for example, hepatitis).

• Iron Chelation: This is basically a process to extract excessive of iron from the body. These excessive iron got deposited due to frequent blood transfusion. Excessive iron damages the liver, heart, and other parts of the body

• Folic acid supplementation: Folic acid  basically helps to build healthy red blood cells. Hence it is recommended along with the blood transfusion.

• Splenectomy: It's basically surgical procedure to remove the spleen. Patients with high rate of transfusion may require to undergo this therapy.

Curative Treatment: These types of treatment are more scientific & used to wipe out the disease from the body. These are relatively expensive & painful. 

• Bone Marrow Transplantation: Bone marrow is the factory where blood is being produced. Through this procedure the existing bone marrow is being replaced with a donor bone marrow ( Alogenic). A stem cell transplant is the only treatment that can cure thalassemia. But only a small number of people who have severe thalassemias are able to find a good donor match and have the risky procedure.

• Genetic Therapy: Scientist are working on various newer technique to treat Thalassemia. Research has gone to the genetic & molecular level to find out the solution for Thalassemia. it might be possible someday to insert a normal hemoglobin gene into stem cells in bone marrow. This will allow people who have thalassemias to make their own healthy red blood cells and hemoglobin.