ASSETTO EMATOLOGICO DI UN GRUPPO DI SOGGETTIAFFETTI DA MORBO DI COOLEY:STUDIO DEL COMPORTAMENTO DELL'ERITROPOIETINA PLASMATICA

Abstract. - The authors have studied the behaviour of erytropoietin plasmatic levels, dosed by RIA method in a group of 11 healthy subjects, aged from 4 to 7 years and in a group of 26 subjects with homozygous 13-thalassemia aged from 2 to 8 years. 18 patients of the latter were treated with transfusion of red cells concentrate almost since two years, the other 8 subjects instead were not. All patients were under iron chelation therapy and were not splenectomized. In all subjects erythropoietin plasmatic levels, red cells number, hemoglobin, transferrin, sideremia, ferritin, nit­ rogen and creatinin plasmatic values were ex­ amined. From the results, expressed as mean values +/- S.D. and statistically evaluated by using Student's t-test for unpaired data, we observed that: 1) In both groups suffering from Cooley's disease erytropoietin plasmatic levels were statistically higher than in controls; 2) In patients suffering from Thalassemia major that adopted transfusional regimen it was possible to specify two subgroups differing only from erythropoietin plasmatic levels: one of these had values like controls, the other one had erythro­ poietinic plasmatic levels statistically higher than both in controls and in patients with thalassemia major without transfusional treatment. Some pathogenetic considerations are discussed.