Assessment of Cardiac, Hepatic and Pancreatic Iron Overload in Transfusion Dependent Thalassemia Patients Using T2* Magnetic Resonance Imaging

Abstract

We planned to assess iron overload in young transfusion-dependent thalassemia (TDT) patients with T2* MRI and correlate with serum ferritin. This study included young TDT patients aged 3 to 38 years on regular transfusion in a tertiary care facility from July 2017 to December 2018. T2* MRI was performed on all patients and correlated with serum ferritin values. Out of 193 cases over a period of one and half year, 26 (13.4%) cases showed mild, 48 (24.8%) moderate, and 92 (47.6%) cases showed severe hepatic iron overload. Cardiac iron overload detected none in 129, mild in 21, moderate in 12, severe in 31 patients. Pancreatic iron overload was observed none in 67, mild 35, moderate in 43, severe in 33 patients and could not be done in 15 patients. There is strong negative correlation between serum ferritin level and liver T2*. Moderate negative correlation of serum ferritin was found with cardiac T2*. Statistically significant difference was observed between pancreas iron overload and age group (P-value = 0.001). The results of this study are comparable with those of several earlier studies In addition, there is a significant correlation between serum ferritin levels and iron overload determined by T2* MRI data.