An Echocardiographic Evaluation of Left Ventricular Function in Patients with Thalassemia Major

Error! Not a valid link. BACKGROUND: Cardiac disease caused by transfusional iron overload remains the principal cause of death in patients with βthalassemia major, despite improvements in iron chelation therapy during the past 25 years. For this reason, regular evaluation of cardiac function is recommended for all patients with thalassemia major and is now an integral part of their management. Cardiac monitoring should, therefore, ideally identify patients at highest risk for cardiac decompensation before heart failure develops. Sequential and reproducible quantification of ventricular function in principle can identify early changes in the left ventricular ejection fraction from baseline for each patient and could be used as a rationale for identifying patients at high risk. METHODS: The study was conducted in the Department of Pediatric Cardiology, The Children’s Hospital and Institute of Child Health Lahore, Pakistan from 1st April 2006 to 30 th October 2010. The study comprised of 50 consecutive confirmed cases of β thalassemia major and 30 controls with normal hemoglobin and electrophoresis pattern. β thalassemia major patients were diagnosed on the basis of hemoglobin electrophoresis. 2-D, M-mode and Doppler echocardiography was performed in all study cases and in control participants. Statistical comparison of study cases and controls was conducted by using unpaired t-