Folic acid supplements are also recommended for some cases of thalassemia. Evaluation and Diagnosis
In theory, the three most common microcytic anemias (iron deficiency anemia, anemia of chronic disease, and thalassemia) can be differentiated by their red blood cell (RBC) morphologies. Anemia of chronic disease shows unremarkable RBCs, iron deficiency shows anisocytosis, anisochromia and elliptocytosis, and thalassemias demonstrate target cells and coarse basophilic stippling. In practice, though elliptocytes and anisocytosis are often seen in thalassemia and target cells occasionally in iron deficiency. All three may show unremarkable RBC morphology. Basophilic stippling is one morphologic finding of thalassemia which does not appear in iron deficiency or anemia of chronic disease. The patient should be in an ethnically at-risk group and the diagnosis is not confirmed without a confirmatory method such as hemoglobin HPLC, H body staining, molecular testing or another reliable method. Coarse basophilic stippling occurs in other cases as seen in Table 1.As IDA and ACD can often be confused, it is important to evaluate their laboratory parameters. IDA is associated with low hemoglobin, ferritin, transferrin saturation, and MCV. It is also associated with a normal C-reactive protein and high transferrin. ACD is associated as well with low hemoglobin but ferritin may be normal-high, and transferrin saturation, transferrin, and MCV may be low-normal. An additional difference between IDA and ACD is that ACD is often associated with high C-reactive protein. See also
Hypochromic anemia

References
External links

Emedicine on chronic anemia
In the segment, a young Australian woman was stung and developed a severe case.A 2007 fictional Sea Patrol episode (S1, E4) involves two crew members of HMAS Hammersley being stung by an Irukandji jellyfish.On the television program Super Animal, a woman compared her experience with Irukandji syndrome to the pain of childbirth.Steve Backshall reports with accounts from victims of Irukandji stings on his ITV wildlife series Fierce in 2016. == References ==