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Abstract #4505

Different Patterns of Myocardial Iron Overload by Multislice T2* Cardiovascular MR as Markers of Risk for Cardiac Dysfunction in Thalassemia Major.

Antonella Meloni1, Pasquale Pepe1, Maria Chiara Dell'Amico1, Gennaro Restaino2, Gianluca Valeri3, Massimo Midiri4, Vincenzo Positano1, Petra Keilberg1, Antonio Cardinale5, Massimo Lombardi1, Alessia Pepe1

1Fondazione G.Monasterio CNR-Regione Toscana & Institute of Clinical Physiology, Pisa, Italy; 2Universit Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Campobasso, Italy; 3Azienda Ospedaliero-Universitaria Ospedali Riuniti "Umberto I-Lancisi-Salesi", Ancona, Italy; 4Policlinico Paolo Giaccone, Palermo, Italy; 5Ospedale S Maria alla Gruccia, Montevarchi, Italy


The validated multislice multiecho T2* CMR technique has permitted to quantify segmental and global myocardial iron overload (MIO) detecting different patterns. Biventricular dysfunction is correlated with MIO distribution decreasing from the patients with homogeneous MIO (all segments with T2* values <20 ms) to the patients with no MIO (all segments with T2* values &#8805;20 ms). Homogeneous MIO and heterogeneous MIO (some segments with T2* values&#8805;20 ms and other segments with T2* values <20 ms) with a global heart T2*<20 predicts a significantly higher risk to develop cardiac dysfunction evaluated by using CMR.