Red cell alloantibodies in thalassemia major. Results of an Italian cooperative study.

Clinical and serological data on 1435 Italian thalassemia major patients were collected during a cooperative study involving 19 centers in 10 regions. The main findings were as follows: 18 percent of the patients were under 6 years of age, 63 percent between 6 and 15, and 19 percent over 15. Forty-one percent had undergone splenectomy. Sixty-two percent of the patients were maintained at pretransfusion hemoglobin levels higher than 10 g per dl, 36 percent between 8 and 10 g per dl, and 2 percent below 8 g per dl. Overall, 5.2 percent of the patients had clinically significant red cell alloantibodies (136 alloantibodies in 74 patients). One-half of the immunized patients had more than one and one-fourth had more than two alloantibodies. The specificities of the 136 alloantibodies were almost exclusively confined to the common antigens of the Rh, Kell, Kidd, and Duffy systems, in that decreasing order of frequency. The antibody screening procedure, using a low-ionic-strength solution antiglobulin test against a three-red-cell panel and the patient's own red cells (autocontrol) with a serum to cell ratio of 100 to 1 was shown to be an adequate technique for red cell antibody detection.