Correlation between phenotype and genotype in a large unselected cohort of children with severe hemophilia A

Phenotypic variability is well recognized in severe hemophilia A. A few studies, mainly in adults treated lifelong on demand, suggest that bleeding phenotype correlates with factor VIII gene (F8) mutation type. Because treatment regimens influence outcomes to a large extent, examining bleeding phenotype during the first years of life may be the most suitable way to define this variability. We set out to analyze the very early phenotypic expression of severe hemophilia A in 621 consecutively enrolled, well-characterized previously untreated patients and to correlate this with patients' F8 mutation. Detailed information was collected on bleeds and treatment of the first 75 exposure days or until inhibitor development. F8 mutation type was known for 531 patients; 402 had null mutations and 129 had non-null mutations. Considering only patients who had not started prophylaxis or developed an inhibitor before select bleeding events, we found that patients with null mutations experienced their first bleed and first joint bleed at younger median ages than patients with non-null mutations (9.7 vs 10.9 months and 13.8 vs 16.1 months, respectively). We conclude that F8 mutation type accounts for only a small component of the significant phenotypic variability found among patients with severe hemophilia A.