What are the treatment options for thalassaemia?

Q: My 5 years old nephew is having thalassaemia major. What are the treatment options available to cure the disease?

A:Only curative treatment for thalassaemia major is allogeneic bone marrow transplantation if an HLA match donor (sibling) is available. In case no match sib donor is available, one could try for full match unrelated donor or cord blood stem cell.

Those patients who do not have any HLA matched donor for transplant, require life long blood transfusion with iron chelators (drugs to remove excess iron).