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Pulmonary Hypertension in β‐Thalassemia
Author(s) -
AESSOPOS ATHANASIOS,
FARMAKIS DIMITRIOS
Publication year - 2005
Publication title -
annals of the new york academy of sciences
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.712
H-Index - 248
eISSN - 1749-6632
pISSN - 0077-8923
DOI - 10.1196/annals.1345.041
Subject(s) - medicine , pulmonary hypertension , thalassemia , cardiology , hypoxia (environmental) , disease , heart failure , beta thalassemia , oxygen , chemistry , organic chemistry
A bstract : Cardiac involvement represents the leading cause of mortality in both forms of β‐thalassemia, namely, thalassemia major (TM) and thalassemia intermedia (TI), and pulmonary hypertension (PHT) is part of the cardiopulmonary complications of the disease. PHT was initially documented in a small group of TI patients with right heart failure. In a subsequent study of a large 110‐patient series, aged 32.5 ± 11.4 years, age‐related PHT was encountered in nearly 60% of cases, having caused right heart failure in six of them; interestingly, all patients had preserved left ventricular systolic function. Conflicted evidence, however, existed with respect to the development of PHT in heterogeneously treated and young TM populations. To resolve this discrepancy, a recent study compared cardiac disease between two large aged‐matched groups of TM ( n = 131 ) and TI ( n = 74 ) patients, both treated uniformly in the currently accepted manner (regular transfusion and chelation therapy in TM, absence of any particular treatment in TI); well‐treated TM patients, in contrast to TI patients, did not develop PHT, while systolic left ventricular dysfunction was present only in TM cases. PHT in β‐thalassemia results from a rather complex pathophysiology, in which chronic tissue hypoxia seems to hold a key role. Although both forms of the disease share a common molecular background, the diverse severity of the genetic defect and of the resulting clinical phenotype require a different therapeutic approach. Regular lifelong therapy in TM patients eliminates chronic hypoxia, thereby preventing PHT, whereas the absence of systematic treatment in TI leads to a cascade of reactions that compensate for chronic anemia, but at the same time allow the development of PHT.