hemophilia
Hemophilia is a group of diseases in which blood does not clot normally. Factors in blood are involved in clotting. When you bleed, your body begins a coagulation cascade of reactions, involving special proteins known as coagulation factors, to stop that bleeding. When one or more of these clotting factors are missing, there is a higher chance of having dificulties stoping the bleeding. Hemophiliacs lacking the normal Factor VIII are said to have Hemophilia A or Factor VIII deficiency , the most common form. Hemophilia is a genetic disease, passed down through family. It is linked to the X-chromosome, so it mostly affects males. F8 is the gene for the Factor VIII protein. Mutations in the F8 gene lead to the production of an abnormal version of coagulation factor VIII, or reduce the amount of the protein. The altered or missing protein cannot participate effectively in the blood clotting process.