• Understanding haemophilia

• Prophylaxis

• Living well

• Care and re-hab
  after a bleed

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Prophylaxis

Patient information

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Prophylaxis means giving treatment in advance to prevent a condition from happening. In the case of haemophilia, prophylaxis involves giving regular infusions of missing factor to prevent bleeds occurring. In contrast,' on-demand therapy' involves giving the missing factor after a bleed has started.

Why use prophylaxis?

Some people with severe haemophilia may have several bleeds per week, often into the same joint. This can turn into a target joint, which never has time to recover between bleeds. Also, studies of people with haemophilia have shown that small joint bleeds, which go unnoticed, may damage joints in the long term. Therefore, even if a person with haemophilia is given prompt on demand therapy, he may still develop joint damage in later life.

Because of these findings, your Haemophilia Consultant may recommend regular prophylaxis with factor VIII if your child has severe haemophilia and joint bleeds. The purpose of these injections is to increase the person's factor VIII activity from below 1% of the usual level to above 1-2% of normal. This means that, in effect, the person now has moderate haemophilia rather than severe haemophilia, and is much less likely to have spontaneous joint and muscle bleeds. Prophylaxis usually involves having three injections of factor VIII every week or sometimes alternate day injections, often started early in life after the first joint bleed and possibly continued for life, depending upoon your doctors clinical assessment.

Information leaflet

Guide to joints
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