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Document Type

Original Article

Abstract

Introduction: The accumulation of iron in the myocardium causes iron overload cardiomyopathy (IOC), which is the primary cause of fatalities in individuals receiving long blood transfusion treatment.

Aim of the work: The study's goal is to determine the prevalence of IOC in patients with blood transfusion-dependent chronic anemia.

Patients& methods The current prospective study included 50 patient with chronic anemia with history of repeated blood transfusion , attending to hematology unit , internal medicine department of faculty of medicine, Al-Azhar university in Cairo, those patients had more than 2 years diagnosis of anemia, repeated blood transfusion in last 2 years and age ranged between 18-35 years old, with exclusion of presence of history of congenital heart disease, intrinsic cardiac abnormalities (as ischemia heart disease ,hereditary cardiomyopathy), systemic hypertension ,diabetes mellitus, autoimmune disease and liver cirrhosis, history of hereditary haemochromatosis or other disease affecting serum iron level as porphyrias.

Results: Of 6/32 patients who have had thalassemia developed cardiomyopathy by symptoms and (EF), while 2/3 patients who have had AIHA developed cardiomyopathy by symptoms and (EF).We didn’t find statistically significant correlation between cardiomyopathy(diagnosed by cardiac MRI) and serum ferritin, as number of patients who developed cardiomyopathy with normal serum ferritin , was equal to those who developed cardiomyopathy with high serum ferritin " above 1000 ng/ml" , (p-value= 0.27).

Conclusion: Symptomatic patients with chronic blood transfusion are in need to exclude cardiomyopathy whatever the serum ferritin level is

Keywords

IOC, serum ferritin

Subject Area

Internal Medicine

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