Speckle tracking echocardiography demonstrates that myocardial iron overload in beta-thalassemia major is inversely associated with rates of diastolic deformation.
Patients with beta-thalassemia major have reduced longitudinal systolic SR, longitudinal early diastolic SR, and circumferential early diastolic SR. The rates of diastolic deformation in the longitudinal and circumferential dimensions are inversely related to myocardial iron overload.
Cheung et al. (Wed,) studied this question.