Effective method of evaluating myocardial iron concentration in pediatric patients with thalassemia major

BACKGROUND: The use of T2* magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has been promoted by recent studies as a noninvasive method for the detection of iron overload in thalassemia major patients. This study aims to estimate the iron load in the heart and liver of thalassemia major patients using T2* MRI and to determine its correlation with the left ventricle ejection fraction and serum ferritin level. METHODS: Forty β-Thalassemia major patients were included in the study. We evaluated the serum ferritin level, echocardiography, cardiac T2*, myocardial iron concentration (MIC), liver iron concentration (LIC) and hepatic T2* in all patients. CMR T2* findings were categorized as normal cardiac T2* (T2* >20 ms) or abnormal cardiac T2* (T2* <20 ms). RESULTS: The study found that 85% of patients had a normal cardiac T2* value. The median serum ferritin level was 2189. A significant inverse correlation was found between the serum ferritin level and the cardiac T2* (r=−0.381, =0.015); however, the correlations between serum ferritin and the hepatic T2* and liver iron concentration were statistically non-significant (P=0.539 and P=0.637, respectively). Additionally, the LVEF correlation was statistically non-significant with SF, hepatic T2* and cardiac T2*. CONCLUSION: Regardless of the serum ferritin level or left ventricle function, a cardiac T2* MRI should be done for all patients with β-Thalassemia major in order to estimate the myocardial iron concentration.