[School screening of hemoglobinopathies in the Marseilles area. An analytic study of 35,289 tests]

A systematic screening for thalassemias and hemoglobinopathies was performed in 35,289 children with a double test associating blood cell counts and hemoglobin electrophoresis. Four hundred thirty-seven (1.23%) hemoglobin abnormalities were found, consisting of 274 cases with thalassemia (0.77%) and 159 hemoglobinopathies (0.45%) among which there were 80 cases with sickle-cell trait (0.22%), 30 with hemoglobin C (Hb C) (0.08%), 19 with Hb D (0.05%), 12 with HbJ (0.03%), 12 with Hb E (0.03%). There was an obvious ethnic influence as, among 17,180 autochtonal French children, only 15 abnormalities were found (0.08%) while 392 were found in 16,850 non autochtonal children (2.32%) and 30 in 1,259 French children from Corsica (2.38%). The highest incidence was found in Italians (173 of 6,455-2.68%) and Maugrabins (105 of 3,014-3.48%).