Fertility and endocrinopathies among adults with β-thalassemia major treated at Dubai thalassemia center.

Authors

Rabah Almahmoud, Amal Hussein, Fatheya Al Khaja, Ahmed Farrag Soliman, Hany Dewedar, Sarah Mathai

Published in

Frontiers in endocrinology. Volume 17. Pages 1746560. Epub Jul 02, 2026.

Abstract

β-thalassemia major (BTM) is made up of group of quantitative anemias characterized by severe anemia and hemochromatosis from frequent blood transfusion. Iron overload in the endocrine system (pituitary gland, thyroid and parathyroid glands, pancreas, and gonads) resulting in different endocrinopathies is a major challenge among BTM patients especially among adults. This study aims at describing different endocrinopathies; namely short stature, hypothyroidism and diabetes mellitus among adults treated at Dubai Thalassemia Center in United Arab Emirates.
This study is observational retrospective cohort in nature, of all adult patients with BTM aged above 18 years who attended the Dubai Thalassemia Centre during the period of November 2019 and May 2021, were extracted from patients' electronic medical records.
A total of 200 adults with BTM above 18 years of age were enrolled in this study. Females constituted 54.5% (n=109) of the sample while 45.5% (n=91) were males. The annual average pre-transfusion hemoglobin level was 9 gm/dL in 81.5%, n=163, while it was low (<9 gm/dL) in 18.0% (n=36) patients. The mean height of all male patients was 165.4 cm (SD = 6.05) and for females it was 154.11 cm (SD = 5.67), while the mean weights of all male and female patients were 60.4 kg (SD + 12.74) and 55.8 kg (SD = 14.60), respectively. Of all female patients, the mean age of menarche was 15 years. The prevalence of Hypogonadism is 23%, Diabetes Mellitus 15%, Hypothyroidism 11%, Hypoparathyroidism 9% and Short Stature 1.5%.
Despite the improved care and introduction of oral chelators, the prevalence of endocrinopathies namely hypogonadism, short stature, hypothyroidism, hypoparathyroidism and diabetes mellitus still pose a major concern for patients with BTM. More emphasis needs to be placed on improving compliance with chelation, and further studies are required to investigate new therapies options to reduce these complications.

PMID:
42466332
Bibliographic data and abstract were imported from PubMed on 17 Jul 2026.

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