An updated review of abnormal hemoglobins in the Turkish population.

TO THE EDITOR

Two previous reviews by Altay and Akar concerning the “Abnormal Hemoglobins in Turkey” appeared in the journal several years ago [1,2]. Since then, several other variants have been reported in both international and national journals. The aim of this mini-review was to compile the newly published abnormal hemoglobins in the Turkish population since these two previous papers [1,2].

During the last five years, several variants, each belonging to one family, confirmed with DNA sequencing were reported (Table 1) [3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20,21,22]. Two further new variants (Hb İzmir and Hb Edirne) was reported in Turkish population for the first time [18,21].

Table 1

Abnormal hemoglobin variants in the Turkish population published since 2007.

It is interesting that although almost six decades had passed since the first determination of a hemoglobin variant, there are still reports on hemoglobin variants mainly related to clinical and genetic counselling.

Altay and Akar pointed out that the exact number of subjects having abnormal hemoglobins in Turkish population is not known due to the absence of a national registry system for these conditions [1,2]. So a national registry system collecting clinical and molecular data is needed.

This aim can be achieved under the auspices of the Turkish Hematology Association.

CONFLICT OF INTEREST STATEMENT

The author of this paper have no conflicts of interest, including specific financial interests, relationships, and/ or affiliations relevant to the subject matter or materials included.