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Background: Early diagnosis of renal dysfunction in β-thalassemia major (β- TM) may help take specific measures to delay irreversible damage and renal failure. Therefore, the present meta-analysis aimed to compare biochemical markers of premature renal dysfunction between β-TM and healthy subjects and identify renal issues' prevalence in patients with β-TM., Methods: We searched PubMed, Cumulative Index of Nursing and Allied Health Literature (CINAHL), Medline, Scopus, Web of Science, ScienceDirect, ProQuest, Google Scholar, and State Inpatient Databases (SIDs) without any language constraints for all relevant articles published up to April 2019., Results: Out of 1458 articles published up to April 2019, 24 case-control and 22 crosssectional studies were investigated. The investigated levels of serum phosphorus, uric acid (UA), cystatin C, and ferritin were significantly different between β-TM patients and controls. The albumin/creatinine ratio (ACR), N-acetyl-β-D-glucosaminidase/creatinine (NAG/Cr) ratio, urinary and serum β2 microglobulin (β2MG), and serum ferritin levels were significantly higher in β-TM patients than in healthy individuals. However, glomerular filtration rate, creatinine clearance, and pretransfusion hemoglobin indicated a significantly lower rate. The general prevalence of renal glomerular and/or tubular defects in patients with β-TM was 50.22%., Conclusion: Urinary NAG, β2MG, ACR, and Scys-C may be early markers of renal dysfunction in patients with β-thalassemia major. An observation of elevated levels of these markers despite normal levels of other markers of renal dysfunction may indicate primary, subclinical injury to the renal tubules and glomeruli., (Copyright© Bentham Science Publishers; For any queries, please email at epub@benthamscience.net.)

Background: Familial Mediterranean Fever (FMF) is one of the most common hereditary auto-inflammatory diseases especially among Arabs, Armenians, Jews, and Turks characterized by recurrent attacks of fever, abdominal pain and arthritis.Whether the prevalence of ankylosing spondylitis (AS) is increased in FMF patients is a matter of debate. This review will summarize all the literature data relevant to this topic., Methods: We searched all the articles through PubMed and Embase databases from 1963 until 2017 addressing the relationship between AS and FMF patients., Results: The prevalence of AS among FMF patients is highly variable. However, a significant relationship was found to exist between MEFV gene mutations and AS. Most patients with coexistent MEFV gene mutations and AS were human leucocyte antigen B27 (HLA-B27) negative. The effect of these mutations on AS severity and prognosis was not significant., Conclusion: Large based population studies are needed to further assess the existence of MEFV gene mutations among AS patients and their effect on the clinical course of the disease in addition to assessment of AS prevalence in patients with FMF., (Copyright© Bentham Science Publishers; For any queries, please email at epub@benthamscience.org.)