Beta-thalassemia and particularly its transfusion-dependent form (TDT) is a demanding clinical condition, requiring life-long care and follow-up, ideally in specialized centers and by multidisciplinary teams of experts. Despite the significant progress in TDT diagnosis and treatment over the past decades that has dramatically improved patients’ prognosis, its management remains challenging. On one hand, diagnostic and therapeutic advances are not equally applied to all patients across the world, particularly in several high-prevalence eastern regions. On the other, healthcare systems in low-prevalence western countries that have recently received large numbers of migrant thalassemia patients, were not ready to address patients’ special needs. Thalassaemia International Federation (TIF), a global patient-driven umbrella federation with 232 member-associations in 62 countries, strives for equal access to quality care for all patients suffering from thalassemia or other hemoglobinopathies in every part of the world by promoting education, research, awareness, and advocacy. One of TIF’s main actions is the development and dissemination of clinical practice guidelines for the management of these patients. In 2021, the fourth edition of TIF’s guidelines for the management of TDT was published. The full text provides detailed information on the management of TDT patients and the clinical presentation, pathophysiology, diagnostic approach, and treatment of disease complications or other clinical entities that may occur in these patients, while also covering relevant psychosocial and organizational issues. The present document is a summary of the 2021 TIF guidelines for TDT that focuses mainly on clinical practice issues and recommendations.

Major haemoglobinopathies (MH), such as thalassaemia syndromes (Thal) and sickle cell disorders (SCD), are genetic defects associated with chronic anaemia and other complications. In Europe, MH are rare diseases (RD) but their prevalence is significantly growing in many countries due to mobility and migration flows. This creates a growing health problem in the EU that has not yet been effectively addressed by Member States (MS) authorities. The present study has been conducted with the aim of: (i) providing an overview of policies for MH in 10 EU member states (MS) (ii) analysing the challenges linked to these RD due to growing requirements imposed by population, mobility and migration trends and (iii) identifying gaps, proposing improvements on existing policies, or developing new ones to fit the identified needs.

Management of thalassemia major requires patients to have life-long access to a treatment regimen of regular blood transfusions coupled with iron chelation therapy. The objective of this study was to investigate patients' reasons for missing iron chelation therapy with desferrioxamine, and the support to sustain life-long adherence to treatment.

The amount of personal information shared online every day by youths without control has raised concerns about their vulnerability to privacy disclosure. Parental mediation strategies have been considered as important aspects that can contribute to the reduction of online-related risks. However, research on this field has shown puzzling results and there is not a consistent investigation of the specific role of parental mediation in youths’ online privacy management. Therefore, this systematic review was aimed at examining the evidence for associations between different parental mediation strategies and aspects of both privacy disclosure and protection. The search was conducted in December 2019 in the SCOPUS and Web of Science scientific databases and resulted in 17 studies that have been included in our review. Taken together, the results confirm that mediation practices can be considered as important variables for the reduction of information disclosure and for enhancing privacy protection. However, some specificities emerged. Restrictive forms of mediation showed clear negative associations with disclosing behaviors, whereas active strategies showed more contrasting results. Moreover, restrictive practices seemed to be less linked to attitudes and beliefs of privacy protection than active forms. More research is needed concerning the role of co-viewing strategies. Findings were discussed in terms of future research and intervention.

Hemoglobin disorders (thalassemia and sickle cell disease) are a group of hereditary anemias that today occur across the world. The recent population movement has led to a steady increase of carriers and patients in all countries of the European Union. Requiring complex monitoring and treatment and, as a consequence, well-organized and nationally coordinated, supported and funded services, these lifelong conditions are now visible to healthcare services in the EU. The purpose of this study is to provide an overview of the current situation pertaining to these disorders, as perceived by the patient/parent community that the Thalassemia International Federation (TIF) represents. The aim is to establish a comprehensive understanding of the situation and unmet needs faced by migrants with thalassemia. The implementation of activities by TIF in 2018–2020 to identify and address these challenges, paves the way to increased awareness, education and policy changes building on international expertise and knowledge that will enable the provision of state-of-art clinical management services thus guaranteeing an improved quality of life. A bird’s eye view of the prevalence of these disorders is presented contributing to the further understanding of challenges met by both patients and healthcare professionals in the receipt and provision of quality healthcare respectively.