Mr. Jackson presents to the emergency room with a minor wound that has bled for several days. An examination of his medical history reveals that Mr. Jackson has hemophilia A, which is caused by a deficiency of factor VIII. Your co-worker suggests that you give Mr. Jackson some platelets to stop the bleeding. Will this help your patient? Why or why not?

Video transcript

Hi, everyone. Let's take a look at this practice problem together. Mr Diaz has been dealing with persistent bleeding for several months upon examination, he was diagnosed with hemophilia following his doctor's advice, he is presently undergoing prophylactic therapy. What is the typical treatment focus for this type of condition? The answer options are a replacing the bone marrow b, eliminating pathogens from the blood c replacing the missing protein and D transfusing healthy blood cells regularly. So in order to answer this question, we need to recall what hemophilia is. Recall that hemophilia is an inherited bleeding disorder. So it's a genetic disorder where the blood is unable to clot properly. And there are two specific clauses for hemophilia. It's either a lack of clotting factor eight or a lack of clotting factor nine. Now recall that both of these are blood clotting proteins. So, in a patient like Mr Diaz, if they, they do not have these proteins, this results in persistent bleeding and the blood is not able to clot properly. So what is the focus for the treatment option? A replacing the bone marrow, hemophilia is not caused by a problem with the bone marrow. So, we can eliminate, option A option B, hemophilia is a genetic disorder. It is not caused by a pathogen. So there's no need to eliminate pathogens from the blood. So, option B is also incorrect. Then we have option D transfusing healthy blood cells regularly. So, hemophilia again is caused by a lack of blood clotting proteins. It's not caused by unhealthy red blood cells. And so option D is also incorrect. The correct answer is option C replacing the missing protein. So, in patients with hemophilia, they lack the functioning gene that produces factor eight or factor nine and therefore the protein has to be replaced. So the correct answer is option C replacing the missing protein. All right, everyone. I hope you found this helpful and I'll see you soon for the next practice problem.