Within their study, Karimi et al.(16) reported that the rate of positivity in the -thalassemia major patients with RAP was a little higher than in the healthy controls with the same symptoms (68% compared with 60%, p 0.05). 1.02-1.2). Gender, blood groups, residency, and education level were not related to the infection. Conclusions: According to the results, it can be concluded that -thalassemia minor patients are possibly more susceptible to infection than healthy people. Further studies are needed to discover more about the exact mechanisms of increased susceptibility to infection in -thalassemia minor patients. infection is seen in about half of the worldwide Eicosatetraynoic acid population and it is Eicosatetraynoic acid higher in the developing countries than in the developed countries (7, 8). Iran, a country, in the Middle East is an endemic region of thalassemia. About 20,000 homozygote -thalassemia and 3,750,000 carriers have been identified in this country (9). Eicosatetraynoic acid All couples should be checked for -thalassemia before marriage in Iran and those who are both carriers receive premarital counselling (10, 11). In North of Iran, -thalassemia minor is the most frequent state of -thalassemia and is estimated about 10% of the population(12). Taking into account the remarkable concurrent prevalence of -thalassemia minor and infection in northern Iran(10, 12, 13), and considering the high rate of gastric diseases among these thalassemia patients in this area, it appears that there may be an association between and -thalassemia minor. There have been some articles showing a probable relationship between and recurrent abdominal pain (RAP) in people with hemoglobinopathies, such as sickle cell anemia and -thalassemia (14, 15). In a survey by Karimi et al.(16), infection in the -thalassemia major patients with RAP was more common than in non-thalassemic controls with RAP. Although the difference was not significant, the authors suggested that can possibly increase the risk of RAP in thalassemia patients (16). In the present study, we aimed to compare the prevalence of infection between -thalassemia minor patients and normal controls in Babol, north of Iran. Methods Study population and data collection: This prospective study was performed on the people who refered to one of the health centers in Amirkola, Babol. This place is CD109 the major referral center for premarital thalassemia sreening in Babol. A series of 100 persons who were confirmed diagnosis of -thalassemia minor were consecutively included in the study (50 males, 50 females) during December 2015-February 2016. To confirm -thalassemia minor, all participants’ blood samples were checked initially for complete blood count (mean corpuscular volume 80 and mean corpuscular hemoglobin 27) and then for hemoglobin A2 using high-performance liquid chromatography (hemoglobin A2 3.5). An equal number of controls, whose genders were compatible, were enrolled in this survey. The recruited controls were those who referred to the same health center. Demographic information (age, gender, blood group, residency, and education level) was obtained from all individuals. Serum samples of the groups were collected and transmited to the immunology laboratory of Babol University of Medical Sciences and stored frozen at -20C. To determine the infection, anti-IgG antibodies were measured using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) kits (IBL, Hamburg, Germany). Samples were considered positive for when the antibody levels were more than 12 U/ml. The study was approved by the Ethics Eicosatetraynoic acid Committee of Babol University of Medical Sciences and Health Services, the reference number is MUBABOL.REC.1395.71. Written informed consent was taken from all participants. Chi-square and student’s t-test were used to compare the demographic factors between case and control groups. To evaluate the association between infection and -thalassemia minor, we used the multivariable logistic regression analysis.