Beta thalassemia is more prevalent in Mediterranean countries such as Iran and Far East. According to the report of center for disease control and management of Iran, there are about 18,000 patients with Beta thalassemia major. According to the excessive expenses for each patient (100,000 USD) and the birth of about 1500 cases annually in Iran, it is important to find carriers by screening those people who are at high risk. This is a descriptive study, which was done on the siblings of 86 major thalassemia patients in central province. They filled out the questionnaires and did the laboratory tests. Among 128 siblings of major thalassemia patients, 53.9% were male. In the final evaluation, 59.4% of cases had minor thalassemia, 34.4% were healthy, and 1.6% had other types of hemoglobinopathies. Also 4.7% had no diagnosis because of incomplete laboratory data. According to Mendelian pattern of inheritance in every pregnancy we expect 25% healthy, 50% minor and 25% major thalassemia. The Chi-2 test shows that there is a significant difference between our results and expected condition. (Pvalue< 0.0001) This difference can be due to the refuse of some of the siblings of patients in our study. The limited number of observations might be another factor. As the prevalence of minor thalassemia is high in these families, we recommend that by recognizing the first case of thalassemia in a family, the evaluation of other children should be done. This method would be more cost-effective.
