SANTA CRUZ DE TENERIFE, Nov. 11 (EUROPA PRESS) –
Hematologists from the Canary Islands University Hospital Complex (HUC), together with hematologists from the San Carlos Clinical Hospital in Madrid, have discovered a new abnormal or variant hemoglobin molecule in a patient from Tenerife.
This finding was reported at the last congress of the Spanish Society of Hematology and Hemotherapy, recently held in Barcelona, and is pending publication in a prestigious hematology journal.
Abnormal hemoglobins are often detected during blood glucose controls in diabetic patients. To quantify the elevated glycated hemoglobin (which gives an idea of the average level of glucose or sugar in the blood) in these patients, the ion exchange high resolution liquid chromatography method is used, which is the same method used to detect hemoglobinopathies, and that separates the components of a mixture based on different types of chemical interactions.
This is the case of a 39-year-old patient, from the north of the island, who was referred to the HUC for study, for showing an abnormal hemoglobin peak in this technique, the chromatogram, when quantifying the glycosylated hemoglobin test.
Depending on the place where these patients with abnormal hemoglobins are diagnosed, and at the discretion of their discoverers, there is the possibility of giving them a name that gives an idea of their exceptionality and geographical location, whether it is a region, city, island, or even a street or square.
Thus, for example, hundreds of variant hemoglobins have been described, such as Hb New York, J-Oxford, Punjab, Zurich, Gran Vía, Puerta del Sol, Valdecilla, etc. that in some cases they are found only in one person or members of a single family.
The head of the HUC Hematology Laboratory and author of the discovery, Dr. José M.ª Raya, pointed out that this new variant of clinically “silent” hemoglobin, which from now on will be included in the international lists of abnormal hemoglobins, They have called Hb Nivaria (Tenerife) in honor of the patient’s origins in Tenerife. He added that, as far as is known, this is the first variant hemoglobin diagnosed on the island.
The Hematology services of the Hospital Clínico San Carlos de Madrid and the HUC have been collaborating for years in the study of patients with anomalies or hereditary diseases of the red series, fundamentally alpha and beta-thalassemias, and haemoglobinopathies, and as a result of this important collaboration it has been possible this discovery.
