Growth in Length and Weight of Thalassemic Children in West Bengal, India: A Mixed-Longitudinal Study

In India thalassemia trait varies between 1 and 17 percent with an average of 3.3 percent in normal population and Hb-E disease is exclusively present in the population of West Bengal and Assam (Chatterjee 1965, Talukder and Sharma 1994). It co-exists with beta-thalassemia in West Bengal producing serious public health problems. Growth retardation occurs in homozygous beta-thalassemia at about the age of 8–10 years and many affected children attain a very short final height (Weatherall and Clegg 1981). Various auxological studies indicate that stunted growth and delayed puberty is frequent in transfusion-dependent thalassemics (Borgna-Pignatti et al. 1985, Perignon et al. 1993, Yeslipek et al. 1993; Saka et al. 1995). In India, where most of the thalassemic children are under-transfused and do not get adequate chelation therapy (Verma et al. 1992), the age of onset of growth retardation may not be the same as that of the developed countries. In the present communication an attempt has been made to report growth and growth increments in length/height and weight of thalassemic Bengali children aged 1–6 years in relation to the non-thalassemic control.