Delayed Puberty in Patients With Thalassemia Major

Background and purpouse: Thalasemia major is one the most prevalent congenital anemia. These patients recieved much rate of iron, due to frequent blood transfusion. Indocrine disorders are prevalent due to replacement of iron in indocrinal gland system, example can be of hypogonadism. In this study the delay of puberty in thalasemic patients of Gorgan city and its relevance to the rate of ferritin was evaluated.

This was a case control study conducted on 110 thalasemia major patients in the age group of 8-18 referred to Taleghani pediatric Hospital to receive blood. In 62 control group patients (31 females and 31 males) electeropheresis was done on their blood. The talassemic patients were divided into two groups on the basis of ferritin level. Those with ferritin level less than 1500 mg/dl (31 females, 18 males) In all the groups the stages of sexual puberty was calculated on the basis of Marshal-Tanner table with the 1-5 scale. For better studying of the groups of one and two, they were divided in subgroups of 8- 11, 12- 14, 14- 18 years of age.

There was no significant difference of puberty in the control and case group of age 8- 11 years old. But there was a significant difference (P<0.01) in the case and control group of 12- 14 years old. And in the age group of 14- 18 result was different, that means, none of female case group had complete puberty while in the female control group all had complete puberty. In case of males, onset of puberty was less as compaire to control group and none had complete puberty. Coclusion: This study showed that if the ferritin level in talassemic patient is not under control, it would lead to delayed sexual puberty in both sexes