To shed more light on the relationship between ischemic heart
disease and iron, serum iron parameters (iron, ferritin and transferrin)
were estimated in fifty ischemic heart patients (15 stable angina, 15
crescendo angina and 20 acute Myocardial Infarction, MI). Their ages
ranged 43 to 58 years. Ten healthy subjects, matched with patients for
age and sex, served as control group. Echocardiographic studies
(ejection fraction, (EF) and end systolic volume, (ESP) together with
peak plasma creatine phosphokinase (CPK) were done for each case of
infarction to correlate these variables with the corresponding serum iron
parameters. Compared to controls, ischemic heart patients had highly
significant increase of serum iron (103.5 1 25.6 vs. 79.6 1 19.2, p <
0.01) and serum ferritin (94.7 2 54.2 vs. 44.41 11.0, p < 0.01) where as
they showed insignificant increase of serum transferrin (273.8 -1 83.8 vs
244 1 2 56.4. P > 0.05). Subgroup analysis showed that there was
statistically significant increase in serum iron and ferritin but not
transferrin in patients with stable angina and in patients with unstable
angina while in cases with acute MI, there was significant increase in all
serum iron parameters. Correlation studies showed that serum iron and
ferritin but not transferrin were strongly correlated with peak CPK, EF
and ESV. Patients with acute MI who had complicated in-hospital
course showed significant higher value of iron, ferritin, transferrin, CPK
and ESV but they had a significant lower EF than non-complicated
cases. In conclusion, serum iron and ferritin were significantly higher in
ischemic heart patients while serum transferrin was significantly higher
only in patients with acute MI. In the infarction group, the higher the
serum iron and ferritin, the larger is the size of infarction, the worser is
the inhospial course and the more impaired is the systolic function. Thus,
the present study might give a new meaning for the emerging role of iron
in ischemic heart disease. |
