Evaluation of Relationship between Serum Ferritin Level and Cardiac Complications in Thalassemia Patients in Pasteur Hospital of Bam City in 2018

Abstract

Introduction and objective: Cardiac complications are the most common cause of mortality in beta thalassemia patients. Hence, this study was conducted with the aim of evaluating the relationship between serum ferritin level and cardiac complications in Thalassemia patients at Specific Diseases Center in Bam city in 2018. Methodology: This is a descriptive-analytical study. Fifty-five patients with thalassemia major in Bam city were selected using a convenient sampling method. They were examined in terms of the prevalence of cardiac complications and their relationship with serum ferritin level was evaluated using SPSS 23 software and descriptive and inferential statistical tests. The significance level was considered p-value< 0.05 in this study. Results: The mean age of the patients was 17.84 ± 6.72. The mean serum ferritin level was 3674.07 ± 2192.21 mg / dl. Only 3 out of 29 patients (5.8%) had an ejection fraction (EF) reduction in echocardiography. In other echocardiographic studies, 13.7% of patients had MILD MR Heart valve dysfunction and 3.9% had MILD TR heart valve dysfunction and 1 person (1.9%) had both dysfunctions simultaneously. Moreover, 13 patients (25.5%) had diastolic cardiac dysfunction. There was no statistically significant relationship between the serum ferritin level of the studied people and echocardiographic findings (p-value <0.05). Discussion and Conclusion: Based on the results of this study and other studies, serum ferritin may not be relied as a definitive indicator for the evaluation of cardiac function. However, it is recommended that the importance of iron removal to be considered in patients’ training programs and different indicators to be used to evaluate the cardiac complications as the most important complication in thalassemia patients. Keywords: Thalassemia, Ferritin, Cardiac complications