Current Activities with Transfusion Complications Monitoring

Electronic medical record system shown on a tablet

Electronic medical record systems can be used to help develop a clinical process that will help identify people with thalassemia.

Continuing the efforts started in 2014 to find ways to decrease health problems from blood transfusions in people with thalassemia or SCD, in 2019, CDC funded a new 5-year project with the Georgia State University Research Foundation, Inc., Joan & Sanford I. Weill Medical College of Cornell University, and The Regents of the University of California San Francisco. The main goal of the project is to understand the complications from blood transfusions in people living with thalassemia.

This project will help to

  • Develop and confirm methods for identifying and accurately diagnosing people with thalassemia; and
  • Develop and share information with people with thalassemia and their families, blood banks, and healthcare providers to help them understand the results of a blood test used to diagnose thalassemia.