A survey of intracranial blood flow velocity in thalassemia intermedia in Khuzestan Province, Iran

Beta-thalassemia intermedia (BTI) is a type of hemoglobinopathy with an increased risk of cerebrovascular accidents, and transcranial cerebral Doppler ultrasonography (TCD) through determining the mean cerebral blood flow velocity (CBFV) can serve to predict the risk of a developing stroke. This study aims to compare patients with beta-thalassemia intermedia and healthy individuals in terms of the cerebral blood flow velocity.

This research was a case control study on 35 BTI patients and 25 healthy subjects. The patients were categorized into three age groups including 7-10, 11-15 and 16-20 years old. The mean CBFVs were compared between the two groups. The factors of age, gender, serum ferritin level, hemoglobin level, spleen size, thrombocytosis, and thalassemia genotypes were evaluated for their effects on CBFVs.

Mean CBFVs were significantly higher in all the intracranial arteries of BTI patients compared to normal subjects (p-value < 0.05). The hemoglobin levels showed a negative correlation between the left and right vertebral arteries of BTI patients in terms of blood flow velocity (p-value < 0.05). The mean CBFVs in the left vertebral and basilar arteries were negatively correlated to age in BTI. There was no correlation among ferritin level, thrombocytosis, splenomegaly, splenectomy, XmnI polymorphism, and cerebral blood flow velocity in the BTI patients group (p-value > 0.05).

This study showed that cerebral blood flow velocities of BTI patients were higher than normal control group. In addition, CBFVs were not affected by factors such as gender, serum ferritin, platelet count, size of spleen and XmnI genotype, however, there was negative correlation between age and hemoglobin level with CBFVs.