background: patients suffering from major beta thalassemia need frequent blood transfusions and, if not treated well, would be at risk of heart dysfunction. this study was performed to determine the diagnostic value of electrocardiography versus echocardiography in measuring the left ventricular mass index in these patients. methods: between july 2010 and june 2011, 82 asymptomatic patients ove...

Introduction: Hearing impairment is the most frequent sensorial congenital defect in newborns and has increased to 2–4 cases per 1,000 live births. Sensory-neural hearing loss (SNHL) accounts for more than 90% of all hearing loss. This disorder is associated with other congenital disorders such as renal, skeletal, ocular, and cardiac disorders. Given that congenital heart diseases are life-thre...

Human β-thalassemia major is one of the most prevalent genetic diseases characterized by decrease/absence of β-globin chain production with reduction of erythrocyte number. The main cause of death of treated β-thalassemia major patients with chronic blood transfusion is early cardiac complications that have been attributed to secondary iron overload despite optimal chelation. Herein, we investi...

BACKGROUND This study aimed to assess myocardial performance index (MPI) and arterial elasticity indices in asymptomatic patients with beta-thalassemia major without known heart disease and to determine relationship between these indices and parameters indicating iron load of body. METHODS The study included 55 asymptomatic beta-thalassemia patients (median age: 20 years (10 - 48 years)) with...

echocardiography is considered the primary diagnostic tool for congenital heart diseases. the pediatric echocardiography diagnostic errors, consisting of false positive or discrepant diagnoses, picked up within a 2.5-year period in our pediatric echocardiography laboratory are presented herein. in this case report, the factors contributing to the diagnostic errors are categorized as cognitive s...

BACKGROUND Patients with thalassemia major present chronic hemolysis and require regular blood transfusions which may cause iron overload cardiomyopathy and chronic heart failure. Hemochromatosis is characterized by excessive iron accumulation in tissues, and heart involvement is the main cause of death in patients with thalassemia. OBJECTIVE The aim of this study was to evaluate cardiac stru...

BACKGROUND Patients suffering from major beta thalassemia need frequent blood transfusions and, if not treated well, would be at risk of heart dysfunction. This study was performed to determine the diagnostic value of electrocardiography versus echocardiography in measuring the left ventricular mass index in these patients. METHODS Between July 2010 and June 2011, 82 asymptomatic patients ove...

background: hydroxyurea (hu) is a well known chemotherapeutic agent that has been used largely for various myeloproliferative diseases over the past 20 years. in β-thalassemia, the effect of hu is much less clear and remains controversial. this study was undertaken to describe the hematologic and clinical responses of thalassemia major and intermediate patients to hu treatment during 2 years. m...

background: echocardiographic evaluations of the longitudinal axis of the left ventricular (lv) function have been used in the diagnosis and assessment of heart failure with normal ejection fraction (hfnef). the evaluation of the global and segmental peak systolic longitudinal strains (pslss) by two-dimensional speckle tracking echocardiography (ste) may correlate with conventional echocardiogr...