Haematologica (Aug 2008)

Liver disease in chelated transfusion-dependent thalassemics: the role of iron overload and chronic hepatitis C

  • Vito Di Marco,
  • Marcello Capra,
  • Francesco Gagliardotto,
  • Zelia Borsellino,
  • Daniela Cabibi,
  • Francesco Barbaria,
  • Donatella Ferraro,
  • Liana Cuccia,
  • Giovanni Battista Ruffo,
  • Fabrizio Bronte,
  • Rosa Di Stefano,
  • Piero L. Almasio,
  • Antonio Craxì

DOI
https://doi.org/10.3324/haematol.12554
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 93, no. 8

Abstract

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Iron overload and hepatitis virus C infection cause liver fibrosis in thalassemics. In a monocentric retrospective analysis of liver disease in a cohort of 191 transfusion-dependent thalassemics, in 126 patients who had undergone liver biopsy (mean age 17.2 years; 58 hepatitis virus C-RNA positive and 68 hepatitis virus C-RNA negative) the liver iron concentration (median 2.4 mg/gr dry liver weight) was closely related to serum ferritin levels (R = 0.58; p