Evaluation of cardiac function in patients with major beta thalassemia in Birjand

The most common leading causes of death in patients with major beta thalassemia are cardiac complications.The purpose of this study is to determine cardiac function in patients with major thalassemia in Birjand. This descriptive-analytical study was conducted on all patients with major beta thalassemia having referred to special clinics of Valiasr Hospital in Birjand. Variables such as age, sex, frequency of transfusions, serum ferritin, and hemoglobin were studied. For all patients after a thorough examination of heart, ECG, chest X-ray, and echocardiography were performed. All data were collected and analyzed with SPSS software 15.5 by t-test at α ≤ 0.05. We studied 35 patients with major beta thalassemia. The mean age was 9.06 ± 4.33 years. The mean hemoglobin was 9.2 gr/dl and the mean ferritin 2121.6 ng/ml, respectively. Cardiac examinations showed 62.9% of patients to be normal. ECG and chest X-ray in 71.6% and 57.1% of patients were normal, respectively. Out of the total number of patients, 77.8% had abnormal echocardiography. The most common abnormal findings in echocardiography were restrictive diastolic dysfunction. No significant correlation was found between abnormal findings on echocardiography with both ferritin and the number of blood transfusions. However, left ventricular diastolic dysfunction and hemoglobin were not significantly associated (8.5 ± 0.69 gr/dL in normal diastolic function, 9.6 ± 0.99 gr/dL in diastolic dysfunction p= 0.007). The most common finding in our study was left ventricular diastolic dysfunction. Therefore, periodic echocardiography to determine the risk of heart involvement is very valuable.