New Insights of Oxidative Stress and Thalassemia May Lead to Antioxidant Therapy

Background: Because of chronic hemolysis, thalassemic patients are under oxidative cell injury caused by secondary iron overload. This provokes oxidative damage to the cellular membranes of organs that accumulate excess iron. Several researchers studied the oxidative stress in patients with thalassemia during chelation therapy and repeated blood transfusion periods, and they found that β-thalassemia patients are under oxidative stress, but they did not focus on before the chelating therapy period. Objective: To evaluate the total antioxidant capacity (TAOC) and oxidative stress (OS) in newly diagnosed patients with β-thalassemia before chelating therapy. Methodology: In the present case-control study, twenty patients newly diagnosed with β-thalassemia before receiving chelating agents, and another 30 healthy individuals, sex-matched with patients, considered as a control, were included in the study. Total antioxidant capacity (TAOC) and Malondialdehyde (MDA) were assessed in the studied groups. Results: The TAOC values of the thalassemic group (35±0.11 u/ml ) were significantly (p<0.001) lower than that of the control group (79±7.2 u/ml). MDA values of the thalassemic group (7.9 ±2.35nmol/l) were significantly (p<0.001) more than that of the control group (0.57±0.25 nmol/l). Conclusion: The present study demonstrated that patients with β thalassemia have decreased values of TAOC, and increased values of MDA when compared with the control group.