Korean J Med.  2008 Dec;75(6):709-713.

A case of transfusion-associated hemochromatosis involving multiple organs

Affiliations
  • 1Department of Internal Medicine, The Catholic University of Korea Colleage of Medicine, Seoul, Korea. drbkh@catholic.ac.kr

Abstract

We report a case of transfusion-associated hemochromatosis in a 38-year-old female who had severe aplastic anemia. She had undergone conservative treatment consisting of multiple transfusions because she had no suitable HLA-matched bone marrow donor. She had received 400 units of red blood cells (RBCs) over 10 years. The transferrin saturation and serum ferritin were increased to 88.4% and 29,905 ng/mL, respectively. Abdominal computed tomography (CT) showed increased densities in the liver and myocardium, suggesting iron deposits in those organs. In general, transfusional iron overload results in primarily reticuloendothelial iron accumulation, which is considered to be less harmful than parenchymal iron accumulation. Nevertheless, our patient had many striking complications associated with hemochromatosis, such as skin pigmentation, hypogonadotropin hypogonadism, insulin-requiring diabetes mellitus, impaired liver function, and left ventricular dysfunction.

Keyword

Transfusion; Hemochromatosis

MeSH Terms

Adult
Anemia, Aplastic
Bone Marrow
Diabetes Mellitus
Erythrocytes
Female
Ferritins
Hemochromatosis
Humans
Hypogonadism
Iron
Iron Overload
Liver
Myocardium
Skin Pigmentation
Strikes, Employee
Tissue Donors
Transferrin
Ferritins
Iron
Transferrin
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