Cardiac involvement in idiopathic haemochromatosis and the effect of venesection

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Abstract
Summary: Eight patients with idiopathetic haemochromatosis have been followed up for 2-15 years to study their cardiac state and the effect of repeated venesection in treating their disability. Five of these patients had no clinical cardiac disability. Serial electrocardiographs were done in five patients and significant abnormality was seen in three of them at the time of admission. After removal of excess iron the cardiac disability progressed in two patients and regressed in one other. One of these presented with palpitations and was found to have Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome. Not one of our patients developed cardiac failure and the two deaths which occurred were the result of hepatic failure. At autopsy one of them was found to have metastases in the myocardium from a hepatoma, a complication we have not encountered in previous reports.

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