Relation Between Serum Ferritin Level and the Left Ventricular Mass Index (LVMI) in Maintenance Hemodialysis Patients

Abstract

Among hemodialysis (HD) patients, the left ventricular hypertrophy (LVH) is a common cardiovascular morbidity predictor. Ferritin level was considered as a clinical marker of iron storage and associated with cardiovascular mortality in chronic kidney disease (CKD) patients. The relationship between ferritin level and cardiac function in maintenance hemodialysis patients has not yet fully investigated. This study aimed to investigate the relationship between serum ferritin level and left ventricular mass index (LVMi) in hemodialysis patients. In this study, 70 regular chronic hemodialysis patients were included in a cross-sectional study (43 men and 27 women). The patients were sub-grouped into two groups according to the ferritin levels (patients with serum ferritin <800ng/ml (n=40), and patients with serum ferritin ≥800ng/ml (n=30)). Left ventricular mass (LVM), Left ventricular mass index (LVMi) and Left ventricular mass/hight 2.7 (LVM/Ht2.7) were evaluated by echocardiography. The patients with serum ferritin level ≥800 ng/ml showed significantly higher LVM, LVMI and LVM/Ht2.7 than other group. LVM, LVMI and LVM/Ht2.7 were significantly correlated to ferritin and hs-CRP. Regarding to the linear regression analysis, serum ferritin level was founded to be an independent predictors of LVM/Ht2.7 and but not for LVM nor LVMi. While, Highly sensitive C-reactive protein (hs-CRP) was founded to be independent predictors of LVM, LVMi and LVM/Ht2.7. This study showed that LVM, LVMI and LVM/ Ht2.7 are significantly elevated in patients with serum ferritin level ≥800 ng/ml. The serum ferritin was found to be independent predictors of LVH (represented by LVM/ Ht2.7) in maintenance HD patients.