Abstract
Background: In Tunisia, thalassemia and sickle cell disease represent the most prevalent monogenic hemoglobin disorders with 2.21% and 1.89% of carriers, respectively. This study aims to evaluate the diagnosis reliability of a series of red blood cell indices and parameters in differentiation of beta-thalassemia trait (β-TT) from iron deficiency anemia (IDA) and between homozygous sickle cell disease (SS) and sickle cell-thalassemia (ST).
Methods: The study covered 384 patients divided into three groups. The first one is composed of 145 control group, the second consists of 57 β-TT and 52 IDA subjects and the last one with 88 SS and 42 ST patients. We calculated sensitivity, specificity, positive-predictive values, negative-predictive values, percentage of correctly identified patients and Youden’s index for each indice. We also established new cut-off values by receiver operating characteristic curves for each indice. An evaluation study was performed on another population composed of 106 β-TT, 125 IDA, 31 SS and 17 ST patients.
Results: Srivastava Index, mean corpuscular hemoglobin, red blood cell, Mentzer Index (MI) and mean corpuscular hemoglobin concentration show the highest reliability in discriminating β-TT from IDA with new cut-offs slightly different from those described in literature. Ehsani Index, mean corpuscular volume, MI, Shine and Lal Index and Sirdah Index are the most powerful in the differentiation between SS and ST.
Conclusions: The effectiveness and the simplicity of calculation of these indices make them acceptable and easy to use for differential diagnosis.
This work received support from the Ministry of Scientific Research and Technology and Competence Development (LR00SP03). The authors are grateful to Mrs. Angela Gudgin (Manchester, UK) and Mr. Mourad Bouatay (Tunis, Tunisia), for their contribution in checking the manuscript language.
Conflict of interest statement
Authors’ conflict of interest disclosure: The authors stated that there are no conflicts of interest regarding the publication of this article. Research support played no role in the study design; in the collection, analysis, and interpretation of data; in the writing of the report; or in the decision to submit the report for publication.
Research funding: None declared.
Employment or leadership: None declared.
Honorarium: None declared.
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