4-year-old boy, 3 times of cerebral hemorrhage

Patient’s boy (4 years old, Hai Phong) was diagnosed with hemophilia from 15 days old. According to Mrs. Th’s mother, right after giving birth, her family discovered that she had swelling on one side of the top of her head, when she was 15 days old, her swelling on the top of her head did not improve, the family decided to take her to the hospital. The local hospital and then the National Children’s Hospital for examination were all diagnosed with hemophilia.

“When the doctor announced that our child had hemophilia, my wife and I were extremely confused, we could only hug each other and cry. Since then, she has often suffered from pain in her arms and legs and had two cerebral hemorrhages when she was 16 months old and 2 years old. Every 2 months, my wife and I take turns taking our son to the hospital for a blood transfusion “- Ms. Th shared.

This time, the patient was admitted to the National Children’s Hospital with a fever of 38 degrees 5, abdominal pain, vomiting. After performing clinical tests and CT scan of the brain, he was diagnosed with cerebral hemorrhage on the background of a patient with hemophilia.

“My child at home had abdominal pain, vomiting, no headache, according to the mother’s hunch, I thought he had an abnormality, so I decided to take him to the doctor right away. Fortunately, the child was treated by the doctors in time, so there were no sequelae,” said Mrs.

Ms. Th added that her maternal family also includes her biological brother and her sister’s son, both of whom were diagnosed with hemophilia.

Dr.BS Nguyen Mai Huong – Head of Clinical Hematology Department – National Hospital of Pediatrics said that hemophilia (also known as hemophilia) is an inherited blood clotting disorder caused by decreased or abnormal blood clotting. The function of clotting factor VIII/IX in the chain of 12 clotting factors.

The boy has hemophilia.

Symptoms of hemophilia are bleeding, often appearing when children start to learn to stand and walk, after falls or collisions when learning to walk often appear bleeding under the skin or bleeding lips and tongue.

In children 2 – 3 years old, bleeding in the joints is common with painful swelling, reduced movement of the limbs or leaving the sequelae of muscle and joint atrophy because of repeated recurrences, fibrosis, the joints or bleeding are neck joints. legs, knees, elbows. The muscles that bleed most often are the calf, thigh, and arm muscles; in which lumbosacral forearm bleeding is common.

If not treated promptly, children can experience complications such as muscle atrophy, stiffness, joint deformity leading to permanent disability. When bleeding in dangerous locations such as the brain, neck, mouth…, if the bleeding is not stopped in time, the patient may die.

Hemophilia occurs almost exclusively in boys

Analyzing this issue, Dr. Huong said that the gene for the production of clotting factors is located only on the X chromosome and is inherited.

Males (who have XY chromosomes) when receiving X disease from their mothers will definitely manifest the disease. Females (set of XX chromosomes) only manifest the disease when both of these chromosomes are faulty, meaning that both parents carry the disease gene.

If the girl has only one X-chromosome, the disease will not manifest but can still be passed on to her baby. Therefore, hemophilia is almost exclusively seen in men, while women are rarely affected because the probability that both parents carry the disease gene is very low.

According to Dr. Huong, it is estimated that in Vietnam there are about 6,400 people with hemophilia, but only about 4000 patients are monitored and treated.

At the National Children’s Hospital, about 100 patients under 18 years of age are being monitored and treated, and about 20 new patients are diagnosed every year.

If someone in the family has hemophilia, parents need to be fully aware of the disease and should go to the doctor for counseling and screening for genetic diseases before marriage and before having children.

Just by doing a gene test to diagnose disease genes, it is possible to choose for the next generation to be born healthy. However, not all patients know this,” said Dr.

A few notes for people with hemophilia

For people with bleeding and clotting disorders, when injured, they need to go to the hospital immediately. Children with hemophilia need to avoid strenuous activities that cause injury.

In case of bleeding that is difficult to stop, or frequent bruising, joint pain, hemophilia should be considered.

Once diagnosed, you should go to the doctor every 6 months, do not inject muscle, acupuncture or massage, avoid using drugs that cause bleeding such as aspirin, do musculoskeletal exercises to reduce bleeding.

When encountering bumps that cause bleeding, it is necessary to immediately go to a medical facility for immediate treatment of the wound.

Currently, hemophilia cannot be cured, but patients can completely live with it. Ideally, people with hemophilia are treated early in primary care or at home and treated periodically.

K.Chi