CLINICAL HETEROGENEITY OF SILENT-GENE B-THALASSEMIA AMONG INDIANS

This paper describes six Indian families in which silent - gene beta-t halassemia was encountered by us in the past 2 years. This stresses th e importance of globin-chain synthesis in the diagnosis of beta-thalas semia. Of these six cases, five were diagnosed retrospectively when th ey had a homozygous beta-thalassemia offspring. The beta/alpha synthet ic ratios ranged from 0.45 to 0.60. Four belong to group-I silent beta -thalassemia and two cases to group II. The severity of thalassemia ma jor in the offspring of these silent carriers cannot be predicted.