Kazim Oztarhan, Yavuz Delibas, Zafer Salcioglu, Guldemet Kaya, Suleyman Bakari, Helen Bornaun, Gonul Aydogan
The aim of the study was to evaluate cardiac function and early cardiac dysfunction of patients followed as thalassemia major. In this study, the authors compared 100 patients, diagnosed as thalassemia major with mean age 11.84 ± 4.35, with 60 healthy control subjects at the same age between 2008 and 2011. Early diagnosis of iron overload that may occur after repeated transfusions is important in this patient group. To detect early iron accumulation, the authors compared ferritin with the echo findings, the 24-hour Holter, and cardiac magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) T2* values in the patients of same age and sex, treated with chelators, without heart failure, nonsplenectomized, and do not differ in the presence of hepatitis C...
April 2012: Pediatric Hematology and Oncology