Advances in thermoanalytical techniques: may aspirin interfere with ß-thalassemia diagnosis?

Thermogravimetry coupled with chemometrics has proved to be a rapid and cost-effective diagnostic tool for β-thalassemia screening. This model, consisting of Partial Least Square-Discriminant Analysis (PLS-DA), permitted the discrimination of thalassemic patients and healthy individuals, using thermogravimetric curves of blood samples. In this study, the impact of aspirin on the capability of the TGA/chemometric validated model to screen for thalassemia was investigated. Whole blood samples from patients with congenital defects and healthy individuals were analyzed by the TGA7 thermobalance (Perkin Elmer) without any pretreament, and the resulting curves were compared to those typical of patients after aspirin intake. The chemometric approach allowed a quick identification of the anemia and confirms that the proposed model was not affected by aspirin. Results permit to consider the coupling TGA/chemometrics as a promising diagnostic approach to provide a high-throughput and sensitive tool to obtain an early detection of thalassemia. © 2018, Akadémiai Kiadó, Budapest, Hungary.