[Thalassemia Reports 2011; 1:e1] [page 1]

Thalassemia is among the most frequent indications for preimplantation genetic diag-nosis (PGD) to allow at risk couples reproduc-ing without fear of having an affected child. In addition, those already having the affected child, have also the option to produce an unaf-fected offspring that may be also a complete human leukocyte antigen (HLA) match to affected child to ensure successful bone mar-row transplantation. We present here the results of retrospective analysis of 293 PGD cycles for thalassemia, including 144cases of simultaneous HLA typing, resulting in birth of 70 thalassemia-free children and 12 unaffect-ed HLA matched ones, providing their cord blood and/or bone marrow for transplantation treatment of their affected siblings. The pres-ent overall experience includes successful cord blood or bone marrow transplantation in more than three dozens of cases with HLA matched stem cells obtained from children born after PGD, demonstrating that PGD is an efficient approach for improving success of bone mar-row transplantation treatment for thalassemia