الفهرس 
Introduction and rationaleOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
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Abstract
β-thalassemia is one of the highly prevalent diseases worldwide. The burden of such disease arises not only from the disease process but also from the serious side effect of the treatment options. Patients with β thalassemia major often have low bone mass, and osteopenia which represent a common complication of thalassemia disease process. The lack of early diagnosis of low bone mass and treatment has led to common occurrences such as fracture, spinal deformities, and nerve compression.
Many factors likely contribute to the etiology of low bone mass in thalassemia, both genetics and acquired factors including nutritional deficiencies of calcium, vitamin D, and zinc. Zinc is one of the essential trace elements for growth and development, differentiation, function of many hormones and as a cofactor for many enzymes in body reactions also zinc have been reported to play important role in normal bone health through various mechanisms, zinc have been shown to play role in regulation of bone homeostasis.
In beta thalassemia patients a suboptimal zinc status was observed in the form of true zinc deficiency or functional zinc deficiency. Zinc deficiency has been reported previously to be associated with decreased bone mineral density therefore this study was performed to determine the effect of zinc supplementation on bone mass in patients with β thalassemia major.
This randomized controlled trial involved an eighty child subject females and males aged 6-12 y with β thalassemia major and low bone mineral density z score patients were randomly assigned either to the zinc supplementednon-supplemented group. Serum zinc level and bone mineral density (BMD) were assessed at base line and after 12 month of zinc supplementation