Impact of magnetic resonance imaging on cardiac mortality in thalassemia major

J Magn Reson Imaging. 2011 Jul;34(1):56-9. doi: 10.1002/jmri.22621. Epub 2011 May 23.

Abstract

Purpose: To evaluate whether the introduction of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in the management of thalassemia major (TM) patients has affected the risk of cardiac death.

Materials and methods: In all, 804 TM patients from two large reference units were included and the risk of dying of cardiac causes, before and after their first MRI, was assessed by a Cox proportional hazards model with time-dependent covariates.

Results: Adding information from MRI reduced the risk of cardiac death from 6.0 deaths/1000 patient-years to 3.9 deaths/1000 patient-years (P = 0.22). The risk of cardiac death before having an MRI study was 82% higher compared to the risk observed after the first MRI.

Conclusion: MRI has become a vital component of ongoing management and seems to have a beneficial effect on cardiac mortality in TM.

MeSH terms

  • Adult
  • Blood Transfusion / methods
  • Chelating Agents / pharmacology*
  • Death
  • Heart / physiology
  • Humans
  • Iron / chemistry
  • Iron Overload / mortality
  • Magnetic Resonance Imaging / methods*
  • Myocardium / pathology
  • Proportional Hazards Models
  • Regression Analysis
  • Risk
  • Treatment Outcome
  • beta-Thalassemia / mortality*
  • beta-Thalassemia / pathology*
  • beta-Thalassemia / therapy

Substances

  • Chelating Agents
  • Iron