the study of growth in thalassemic patients and its correlation with serum ferritin level

abstract background beta-thalassemia is a common hereditary hemoglobinopathy, which is a reason of microcytic hypochromic anemia. patients with major thalassemia require multiple blood transfusions. this study evaluated growth in thalassemic patient and relationship with ferritin level. materials and methods this is a cross sectional study on seventy patients (36 boys, 34girls) with transfusion dependent major thalassemia at the special diseases center of yazd. their age rang was 2 to 28 year. all of them received chelating therapy (deferoxamine) every night. weight, height, body mass index (bmi) and serum ferritin of patients were recorded. results in this study 46 (65.71%) of patients had height less than five percentile, and 24(34.29%) more than five percentile. thirty eight patients (54.28%) had weight more than five percentile and 32(45.71%) less than five percentile. bmi of 13(18.6%) patients were low and 57(81.4%) patients had normal bmi. mean serum ferritin in patients with height more than 5 percentile was 2252+/-1040 and with height less than 5 percentile was 2962+/-1606(p-value=0.072). mean serum ferritin in patient with weight more than 5 percentile was 2309+/-1284 and with weight less than 5 percentile was 3199+/-1545 ( p-value=0.017). in patient with normal bmi, mean serum ferritin was 2679+/-1378 and it was 2596+/-1777 with low bmi. conclusion high serum ferritin levels during puberty cause delay of growth retardation and development in transfusion dependent thalassemia patients. key words beta-thalassemia, growth, deferoxamine, blood transfusion