European Journal of Biomedical and Pharmaceutical Sciences

EFFECT OF DEGREE OF IRON OVERLOAD ON BRAINSTEM AUDITORY EVOKED POTENTIAL IN THALASSEMIA PATIENTS ON IRON CHELATION THERAPY

Mridul Yadav*, Jyoti Yadav, Shelja Deswal and Pankaj Abrol

ABSTRACT

Thalassemia is a genetic disease requiring long term blood transfusions. This results in iron overload in these patients which is a challenging problem despite iron chelation therapy. The purpose of this study was to detect any correlation between the degree of iron overload and subclinical involvement of auditory pathway by doing brainstem auditory evoked potential (BAEP). Forty five patients of thalassemia major were divided into three groups (I, II &III) based on their iron chelation therapy as desferrioxamine, combination of desferrioxamine & deferiprone and only deferiprone respectively. Each group was further divided into subgroups 'a' and 'b' having serum ferritin levels less than 5000 ng/mL and more than 5000 ng/ mL respectively. Brainstem auditory evoked potentials were recorded by using RMS EMG EP MK2 and correlated with serum ferritin levels of subgroups a and b within each group. We found that there was no significant correlation between degree of iron overload and absolute latencies and interpeak latencies of auditory evoked potentials in any of the groups, Our findings indicate that high levels of serum ferritin do not affect BAEP in thalassemia patients.

Keywords: Thalassemia, Brainstem auditory evoked potentials, serum ferritin.