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 ≥20 ms). Homogeneous MIO and heterogeneous MIO (some segments with T2* values≥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.