Thalassemia is anemia of variable severity, arising from mutations of genes encoding the hemoglobin alpha and beta chains. Severe thalassemia is associated with iron overload, tissue lesions, and high risk for cardiovascular complications, and iron-mediated cardiomyopathy is the main cause of death in this condition. Thalassemia major (TM) patients exhibit cardiovascular abnormalities consisten...

A 56 year old man presented with an atypical chest infection. Remote inferoposterior myocardial infarction was noted on electrocardiography and transthoracic echocardiography. Hepatic failure developed with sudden gross elevation of liver aminotransferases and coagulopathy. No primary hepatic cause could be identified. Subsequent right heart failure led to transoesophageal echocardiography that...

Quadricuspid pulmonary valve is a rare congenital heart disease. It is infrequently associated with significant clinical complications and tends to be clinically silent. Because of its benign nature, it has been diagnosed mainly post mortem. Its diagnosis by transthoracic echocardiography is very difficult because of the anatomical features. We describe a case of quadricuspid pulmonary valve di...

Background: Cardiac dysfunction due to chronic anemia and hemosiderosis are the major causes of death among patients with thalassemia intermedia. This study was performed to compare the cardiac function in thalassemia intermedia patients with normal subjects by means of echocardiography. Materials and Methods: This was a case-control study performed on 22 patients affected by thalassemia int...

  Background   In respect to abnormalities in thalassemia patients and the effects of TNF_α, IL_6, and NT-pro-BNP on echocardiography findings the study aimed to investigate TNF_α, NT-pro-BNP and IL_6 correlations wit...

A 2-year-old girl was referred to the Harapan Kita National Heart Center due return of spontaneous circulation after cardiac arrest, bradyarrhythmia and repeated seizures with loss consciousness. She had been treated an epilepsy drug for 1 year. Electrocardiography during one episode showed complete heart block junctional escape rhythm QT interval prolongation, which then progressed torsades de...

Cardiac involvement, as an initial presentation of malignant lymphoma is rare. We report a 42-year-old Taiwanese man with frequent syncope. Routine electrocardiography disclosed complete atrioventricular block. Before permanent pacemaker implantation was undertaken, transthoracic echocardiography revealed a solid mass infiltrating the left atrium and interatrial septum. Transesophageal echocard...

E lectrocardiography and echocardiography are widely used in hypertensive patients with the aim of identifying left-ventricular hypertrophy and its serial changes, because such changes have important prognostic implications. Detection of left-ventricular hypertrophy is, however, only one of the many applications of these diagnostic techniques. In this issue of the Journal, Cicala et al address ...

Background: Cardiac dysfunction is one of the major causes of morbidity and mortality in thalassemia patients. This study aimed to compare the effect of Brain Natriuretic Peptides (BNP) and Calcitonin Gene-Related Peptide (CGRP) with echocardiographic findings in early diagnosis of cardiac disease in major thalassemia patients. Materials and Methods: This study was performed on 80 patients amo...