ABSTRACT
Iron overload causes most of the mortality and morbidity associated with thalassemia. Excess iron deposits primarily in the liver, but once a threshold level is reached, iron loading may occur in other tissues such as the heart. Magnetic resonance imaging is a well established technique to noninvasively quantify myocardial and liver iron content. More than 300 disease-causing mutations have been identified. We aimed to determine the impact of genotype on liver iron content in patients with beta thalassemia. Cross sectional study was carried on 73 patients with beta thalassemia. MRI liver and heart was performed to determine hepatic and myocardial iron overload. Genotyping was determined by DNA sequencing technique. The mean liver iron content was 17.4 mg/g dw and mean cardiac T2* was 25.5 ms in our patients. Patients with ß0ß0 were associated with significantly higher liver and myocardial iron content compared to those with ß0ß+ and ß+ß+ genotypes. There was a clear association between genotype and both hepatic and myocardial iron overload. Patients with ß0ß0 had significantly higher liver and heart iron content compared to those with ß0ß+ and ß+ß+ genotypes. Liver iron content was strongly correlated to serum ferritin levels and myocardial iron overload.