Recurrent bone pain in a Sicilian child with sickle β+ thalassemia: a diagnosis not to be forgotten A case report and literature review.

Sickle cell-thalassemia is known to be a severe type of congenital haemolytic anaemia. Mild or asymptomatic cases have been previously described in literature. We report an unusual case of a 6 year old sicilian boy who presented recurrent episodes of bone pain undervalued for a long time and wrongly diagnosed as pain of growth. On our investigation he was detected to have sickle !+-thalassemia. The heterogeneous features of this disease often can make difficult the exact diagnosis but the current impact of the disease should stimulate to think at this condition, above all in Sicily and in the Mediterranean countries where this disease is endemic.