The aim of this article is to assess the prevalence and severity of myocardial iron overload in thalassemia patients who present for the first time for cardiac MRI and to define the right age to start screening, in a resource—constrained environment. All MRI scans done at our institute for myocardial iron overload assessment in thalassemia patients, between 2015 and 2018 were analysed. Patients up to the age of 30 years were included. There were a total of 600 patients, (Age group between 2 and 30 years). All these scans were retrospectively analysed and severity of myocardial iron overload was categorized as normal, mild, moderate and severe based on the bright blood T2* equivalent values at 1.5 T. Overall prevalence of myocardial iron overload was 32.3%, while the prevalence of myocardial iron overload in patients in the age group 0–10 was 10.2%.There were 40 patients in the age group 0–6 years, of whom, only 2 had myocardial iron overload. In patients less than or equal to 6 years of age, the number of patients with iron overload was very small and this may be used to decide the optimal age for scanning.

本文的目的是评估首次接受心脏 MRI 的地中海贫血患者心肌铁超负荷的患病率和严重程度，并确定在资源有限的环境中开始筛查的合适年龄。我们对 2015 年至 2018 年间在我们研究所进行的用于地中海贫血患者心肌铁超负荷评估的所有 MRI 扫描进行了分析。年龄在 30 岁以下的患者均被纳入其中。共有 600 名患者（年龄组在 2 岁至 30 岁之间）。对所有这些扫描进行回顾性分析，并根据 1.5 T 亮血 T2* 当量值将心肌铁超负荷的严重程度分为正常、轻度、中度和重度。心肌铁超负荷的总体患病率为 32.3%，而心肌铁超负荷的患病率为 32.3%。 0-10岁年龄段患者的铁超负荷率为10.2%。0~6岁年龄组共40例患者，其中仅有2例出现心肌铁超负荷。在小于或等于6岁的患者中，铁超负荷的患者数量很少，这可以用来确定最佳扫描年龄。