Gangguan pertumbuhan pada thalassemia disebabkan oleh banyak faktor antara lain faktor nutrisi. Gangguan pertumbuhan akibat kekurangan gizi dapat menyebabkan perawakan pendek. Nutrisi yang adekuat sangat penting untuk pasien thalassemia sebagai modalitas dalam pengobatan jangka panjang dan untuk mencegah gangguan gizi, gangguan pertumbuhan, perkembangan pubertas dan defisiensi imun. Asupan nutrisi yang dianjurkan pada thalassemia adalah tinggi kalori, protein, kalium, seng, vitamin A,D, E, rendah besi sedangkan vitamin C harus dikurangi karena dapat meningkatkan absorpsi besi. Suplementasi vitamin C dosis rendah diberikan bersamaan dengan penggunaan desferoksamin untuk membantu meningkatkan pengeluaran besi.Kata kunci: thalassemia, nutrisi, tumbuh kembang.

Background Repeated blood transfusions in thalassemic chil-dren can lead to iron overload in the body. High ferritin level leadsto low plasma zinc status because of their competitive inhibition.Previous study found that there was a correlation between plasmazinc level and nutritional status.Objective To obtain plasma zinc level, to investigate the correla-tion between plasma zinc and ferritin, and the impact of plasmazinc on nutritional status in children with thallasemia.Methods A cross sectional study was conducted on 67 thalas-semic children. This study was performed at Thalassemia Center,Cipto Mangunkusumo Hospital, Jakarta, from 1 st until 31 st of March2005. The age of the patients ranged from 4 to 18 years, with fer-ritin levels more than 2000 ng/ml during the last 6 months or totaltransfusion more than 5 liters. The subjects were divided into 2groups, i.e. group 1 (4-10 years) and group 2 (>10-18 years). Di-etary intake was assessed by 3 day-dietary recall. The nutritionalstatus were judged by mid upper arm circumference (MUAC) forage and height for age (H/A). Venous blood was obtained to mea-sure plasma zinc and ferritin levels. Statistical analysis was doneby Student’s t-test (2-tailed) and linear regression analysis.Results We found that 42% subjects were well-nourished, 51%were undernourished, and 7% were severely malnourished. All sub-jects had low plasma zinc status 31.9 (SD 16.9) μg/dl. There was aweak negative correlation between plasma zinc and ferritin level (r= -0.282, P=0.021). Lower zinc intake was detected in 65 out of 67subjects.Conclusion All thalassemic children in our hospital had low plasmazinc level. There was a weak negative correlation between plasmazinc level and ferritin level. There was no significant correlationbetween plasma zinc status and nutritional status