Myocardial iron overload assessment by T2 magnetic resonance imaging in adult transfusion dependent patients with acquired anemias

1 Ematologia e Centro Trapianti, Centro Oncologico di Riferimento regionale "Armando Businco", Cagliari 2 Radiologia Ospedale "Brotzu", Cagliari 3 Ematologia Ospedale di Nuoro 4 Centro Trapianti, Ospedale Binaghi, Cagliari 5 Ospedale Microcitemico, Cagliari, Italy Correspondence: Emanuele Angelucci, MD, U.O. Ematologia, Ospedale Oncologico "A. Businco", via Edward Jenner, 09121 Cagliari, Italy. E-mail: emnang{at}tin.it Only limited data are available regarding myocardial iron overload in adult patients with transfusion dependent acquired anemias. To address this topic using MRI T2* we studied 27 consecutive chronic transfusion dependent patients with acquired anemias: (22 myelodysplastic syndrome, 5 primary myelofibrosis). Cardiac MRI T2* values obtained ranged from 5.6 to 58.7 (median value 39.8) milliseconds. Of the 24 analyzable patients, cardiac T2* correlated with transfusion burden ( p =0.0002). No patient who had received less than 290 mL/kg of packed red blood cells (101 units=20 grams of iron) had a pathological cardiac T2* value (< 20 ms). All patients who had received at least 24 PRBC units showed MRI T2* detectable hepatic iron (liver T2* value 6.3 ms). Only patients with severe hepatic iron overload (T2*