the efficacy of rbc indices as initial screening methods in detecting thalassemia and sickle cell anemia within the malayali tribes of the dharmapuri district, tamil nadu

The study is done to find the effectiveness of preliminary tests on rbc indices in mass screening of thalassemia and sickle cell anemia. cross-sectional design study was used with a structured questionnaire and laboratory evaluation to assess the effectiveness of using rbc indices as a preliminary test for the detection of hemoglobinopathies among malayali tribes in dharmapuri district. rbc parameters were immediately examined using a sysmex poch-100 auto analyser, and samples were processed for hplc estimation the following day. the mean and standard deviation (sd) of quantitative data were used to describe the normally distributed data. using the chi-square test, associations between demographic factors and hemoglobinopathies were examined. the t-test was used to compare the groups. statistics were considered significant at p < 0.05. in mch and mcv, there is found to be a significant difference between the normal and test with a p-value of 0.000. the rdw-cv mean values for β-thalassemia trait, sickle cell trait, and normal are 17.792 ± 3.016, 15.833 ± 2.33, and 15.581 ± 2.807, respectively. hba2 values above the mean score for beta thalassemia are 4.514 ± 0.920 and for normal 2.601 ± 0.371. in the sickle cell trait case, the s. window values for the mean are found to be 23.662 ± 0.867. there is minimal study about hemoglobinopathies in tamil nadu and with the huge population of tribes in tamil nadu. this study revealed the desired results on the effectiveness of preliminary tests. the people should be given proper genetic counselling on thalassemia or sickle cell anemia for prevention.