Global survival rate of patients with beta thalassemia major: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Objectives: Thalassemia is a public health challenge in the countries entitled belt thalassemia but there is no pooled estimated of the survival rate on thalassemia major patients. The aim of this meta-analysis was to evaluate the pooled 10-, 15-, 20-, and 30-year survival rates of the patients with beta thalassemia major around the world. Methods: A comprehensive literature search of five international databases including Medline/PubMed, Scopus, Embase, Web of knowledge and ProQuest was conducted to identify studies reporting survival rate of beta thalassemia major until March 2020. Results: From 714 retrieved studies, seven studies with 8777 subjects included in the meta-analysis. Base on random effect model, the 10-, 15-, 20-, and 30-year survival rates were 98.39, 95.07, 90.41, and 82.93 percent, respectively. Conclusions: This meta-analysis provided acceptable results for estimating survival rate of beta-thalassemia compared to other studies. Hence, these results can be effectively used to develop and implement prevention and treatment interventions for policy makers.