Determining the Change of Hormonal and Biochemical Parameters in the Thalassemia Major Patients Over 3 Years

Endocrinopathies are common complications in Thalassemia Major (TM) patients. They are important as secular trends of complications in childhood as a critical period for growth and development. The present study, then, aimed to investigate these complications in children and young adults.

34 TM patients, with the mean age of 19 ± 6 y/o, entered this study. Female to male ratio was 21/13. Their medical history was obtained by review of medical records. Data about FBS, AST, ALT, TG, cholesterol, and ferritin, TSH, LH and FSH was collected. Due to the lack of normality of some continuous variables, an appropriate transformation method was implemented to convert them to normal distribution. Repeated measure ANOVA was used to assess change of outcomes across time. Correlations between different parameters were also calculated.

After 3 years, only FBS changed significantly in comparison to phase 1 and 2 results (P-value=0.028).  Ferritin in the first phase significantly correlated with ALT (P-value = 0.021), in the second phase with AST (P-value=0.029) and ALT (P-value=0.002) and in the third phase with FSH, LH and TG (P-value=0.047, 0.020, 0,027, respectively). In the first phase AST correlated with TG and cholesterol (P-value=0.015, 0.001, respectively) and ALT with cholesterol (P-value <0.001). ALT correlated with TG in the second phase (P-value=0.040). ALT and AST correlated with cholesterol in the third phase (P-value=0.002, 0.007, respectively).

Hormonal parameters do not show significant change during a 3 years period in TM patients.