| Introduction: Pulmonary hypertension is a common complication
associated with thalassemia syndromes and it may play an important
role in the pathogenesis of right ventricle failure. The true prevalence of pulmonary hypertension in patients with thalassemia major
remains unclear and has been reported to be between 2 and 79%.
Materials and methods: In total, 70 patients with thalassemia major
were initially examined. Patients with valvular left heart disease, congenital heart diseases such as atrial septal defect (ASD) and ventricular septal defect (VSD), left heart failure, and chronic embolism were
excluded. All patients with thalassemia major underwent echocardiography. Based on tricuspid regurgitation velocity (TRV), the patients
were divided into the following three groups: low, medium, and
high risk of pulmonary hypertension.
Results: The mean age of the subjects was 24 y; 60.6% of the subjects were males and 39.4% of the subjects were females. Overall,
three (4.5%) subjects were considered at a high risk of pulmonary
hypertension. The mean hemoglobin level in the patients with a
high probability of pulmonary hypertension was 8.2 g/dL and that in
the patients with a low or medium probability of pulmonary hypertension was 9.1 g/dL. No significant difference was observed
between the groups (p ¼ .059).
Conclusion: This study showed that, based on new echocardiography criteria, the prevalence of pulmonary hypertension secondary
to b-thalassemia was 4.5% and there was no correlation between
TRV and the number of received blood units or disease duration. |