Evaluation of echocardiographic findings in beta thalassemia major patients in a thalassemia clinic of a tertiary care hospital

Abstract

  Background: Thalassemia is the most commonly inherited haemolytic anaemia. Cardiac involvement is the leading cause of morbidity and mortality among the children of transfusion dependant beta thalassemia major due to myocardial iron deposition leading to heart failure and arrythmia. Aim: The aim was to detect early heart failure in beta thalassemia major children by evaluating the cardiac function by echocardiography. Materials and Methods: An observational cross-sectional study was conducted on 85 beta thalassemia major children between the age group of 1-12 years attending Thalassemia clinic of a tertiary care medical college and hospital from March, 2020 to July, 2021. A detailed history, clinical examination and cardiac investigations were conducted among them. Echocardiography was done to evaluate the different cardiac functions like ejection fraction (EF), early and late ventricular filling velocity ratio (E/A), LV mass, etc. Results: In our study 62.4% were female and 37.6% were male. Mean age of our study was 7.2±2.8 and the age range was 2-12 years. All of them were having normal systolic function but 30.6% were having abnormal diastolic function on doppler echocardiography. The mean value of EF, E/A and LV mass were 66.52±4.37, 1.49±0.33 and 68.42±27.38 respectively. A weak but significant association was found between transfusion frequency and diastolic dysfunction (p-value 0.05) in our study. Conclusion: Diastolic dysfunction is the earlier cardiac complication of thalassemia children. It is beneficial to conduct echocardiography in all thalassemia patients in their first decade to gain better understanding about cardiac function.