Hemoglobin Bart's in a Brazilian black population

ABSTRACT

Hemoglobin Bart's was measured spectrophotometrically after electrophoreis on cellulose acetate strips in cord blood from 320 full-term randomly selected black new borns from the University Hospital of Campinas, State of Säo Paulo, in the southeast of Brazil. Hb Bart's was detected in 38 of the 320 newborns (11.0%), with the levels presenting the following bimodal distribution 10.3% of the infants in the 1-3.5% range and 1.6% in the 5-10% range. The data suggest that the frequency of alfa-talassemia gene in the Brazilian black population is individuals with Bart's Hb in the 5-10% range are usually alfa+ -talassemia homozygotes