Diagnosis and treatment of cardiac iron overload in transfusion-dependent thalassemia patients

ABSTRACT

Introduction: Thalassemia is among the most common genetic diseases. Patients with severe forms of the disease are transfusion-dependent, leading to iron overload. A condition which can eventually develop in the iron-loaded heart is iron overload cardiomyopathy, a debilitating disease that accounts for the majority of deaths in thalassemia patients.

Areas covered: This review article provides a comprehensive summary of the diagnosis and treatment of cardiac iron overload in transfusion-dependent thalassemia patients, with discussion covering current weak points and potential improvements of the relevant diagnostic and therapeutic strategies.

Expert commentary: Current limitations of various diagnostic techniques for iron overload cardiomyopathy include suboptimal accuracy, untimely detection, or inadequate accessibility, and novel modalities are required to overcome these shortcomings. Treatment should address key pathophysiologic mechanisms of iron overload cardiomyopathy, which include cardiac iron mishandling and iron-induced oxidative injury. Apart from the promotion of iron removal by chelators, prevention of cardiac iron deposition and attenuation of oxidative damage should also be rigorously investigated on a cell-to-bedside basis.

KEYWORDS:

• Chelation
• heart
• iron overload
• thalassemia
• transfusion

Declaration of interest

The authors have no relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript. This includes employment, consultancies, honoraria, stock ownership or options, expert testimony, grants or patents received or pending, or royalties. Peer reviewers on this manuscript have no relevant financial or other relationships to disclose.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Thailand Research Fund Grant TRF-RTA6080003 (SCC), the NSTDA Research Chair grant from the National Science and Technology Development Agency Thailand (NC), and a Chiang Mai University Center of Excellence Award (NC).