Routine Screening of (--SEA) α-Thalassemia Deletion by an Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay for Embryonic ζ-Globin Chains

We evaluated an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) for embryonic zeta-globin chains as a routine screening test for (--(SEA)) alpha-thalassemia deletion (SEA deletion). A total of 174 consecutive patient samples with a request for Hb analysis were recruited. The ELISA method was evaluated against a polymerase chain reaction (PCR)-based technique that was taken as the standard. Among 56 simple carriers of SEA deletion diagnosed by PCR and …