Haemophylia

lulita · Silver Member Joined: 25 Oct 2001 Posts: 285

My little brother is 5 and he has haemophilia. I would like to know more about his condition. How does it actually happen and what is the best treatment for his condition? Can it be life threatening?

borgwardt · Silver Member Joined: 13 Dec 2000 Posts: 294

Haemophilia is an inherited bleeding disorder that is due to a deficiency of a blood protein essential for blood clotting. The deficient protein may be clotting factor VIII or clotting factor IX. Only male children are severely affected. Bleeding occurs easily and is prolonged and it can occur spontaneously, in the absence of any injury. Not all people with haemophilia are severely affected. A person's sex is determined by a pair of chromosomes, the sex chromosomes which are inherited from each parent. Females have two X and males have one X and one Y chromosome. A boy inherits the X-chromosome from his mother and the Y-chromosome from his father. The X-chromosome carries the factor VIII and factor IX genes and because boys have only one X-chromosome, they have only one gene for making factor VIII. They inherit this gene from their mother and if this gene is abnormal, they can make no factor VIII, or very little so they have haemophilia. A girl with one abnormal factor VIII gene does not have haemophilia but she is called a carrier for haemophilia. This means that she can pass on the abnormal gene to a son. I hope that this explanation was clear enough for you.

Haemophylia

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