Blood Bank Guy Essentials Podcast 094CE: Thalassemia Essentials with Sujit Sheth
Mar 2, 2022
Sujit Sheth, a pediatric hematologist and director at the New York Comprehensive Thalassemia Center, shares insights into thalassemia, a significant yet often overlooked global health issue. He discusses the differences in treatment compared to sickle cell disease and emphasizes the complexities of managing this genetic disorder. The conversation covers red cell transfusion strategies, the importance of maintaining optimal hemoglobin levels, and advances like gene therapy. Sheth highlights education's role in improving awareness and care for thalassemia patients.
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Thalassemia Is A Global Public-Health Issue
- About 1.5% of the world's population carries a thalassemia mutation, roughly 80–90 million people worldwide.
- The disease burden is concentrated across the Mediterranean, Middle East, Indian subcontinent, Southeast Asia, and China.
Personal Path From India To Thalassemia Care
- Sujit Sheth trained in India and saw many untreated thalassemia patients die young due to lack of chelation and resources.
- That experience drove him to specialize in hematology and build a career treating and researching thalassemia in the U.S.
Thalassemia Is A Quantitative Globin Problem
- Hemoglobin is built from alpha and beta globin chains; fetal hemoglobin uses gamma instead of beta.
- Thalassemia arises when one chain type is underproduced, causing quantitative imbalance and disease.