Effectiveness of thalassemia screening with the use of internal quality control blood samples at Kasetsomboon Hospital, Chaiyaphoom province

Abstract

The prevention and control program of severe thalassemia diseases has been carried out according to the policy of the Ministry of Public Health at Kasetsomboon Hospital, Roiet province. Discrepancy between the result of thalassemia screening and confirmatory test is commonly encountered. Therefore to improve screening quality, this study aimed to examine the effectiveness of thalassemia screening with the use of internal quality control blood samples at Kasetsomboon Hospital. Screening was done using KKU-OF/KKU-DCIP reagent kits on 124 blood samples. The sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value and negative predictive value were found to be 96.4, 76.8, 76.8 and 96.4 respectively. Comparison of data on 48 retrospective couples and 67 prospective couples demonstrated higher accuracy and higher rate of couples at risk with the latter. This result indicates that thalassemia screening at Kasetsomboon Hospital has been improved with the use of internal quality control blood samples which should consequently lead to a more effective prevention and control program.