Cardiac iron load and its correlation with cardiac functions in Thalassemia

Myocardial disease remains the life-limiting complication of thalassaemia major (TM). In this study, MR1 of cardiac and hepatic iron was estimated in 20 patients with TM aged between 11 and 24 years. Hepatic iron concentrations (HIC) were determined in all patients. Cardiac functions of the patients were evaluated by M-mode echocardiography. The correlation between estimates of hepatic iron obtained by MRI and chemical measurements of hepatic iron was evaluated. The relationship between MRI of cardiac and hepatic iron was determined. The relationship between cardiac functions and cardiac iron obtained by MRI were investigated. We observed a significant correlation between HIC and the ratio of signal intensity of liver to muscle with T l -weighted images (p=0.000). However, no linear correlation was found between the MRI of cardiac and hepatic iron. There was also no correlation between MRI of cardiac iron and cardiac functions including LVEF, LVFS, mitral and tricuspid E/A, LV mass (i) and velocity of circumferential fiber shortening. Our data indicate that cardiac iron burden seems not to be related with hepatic iron and cardiac functions seem to be a complicated process related with some other factors as well as cardiac iron deposition