New diagnosis
Hello everyone,
Newly diagnosed with hemochromatosis by accident. MD noticed higher than normal Hemoglobin levels and decided to check ferritin which was elevated. Have been lucky to be asymptomatic so far and it was caught earlier. Liver enzymes normal and heart echocardiogram normal.
Have had 3 phlebotomies so far, with minimal decrease in ferritin levels (will post labs below).
How many phlebotomies were needed to bring your levels down to 50-100?
Can someone help me calculate my dry weight iron levels on my MRI? They did not do the calculation for some reason (at least from what I can see).
Labs:
Ferritin: 718>642>656
Transferrin: 162
TIBC: 224
Unsaturated Iron Binding Capacity**:** 27
Iron saturation: 87.9
POSITIVE FOR TWO COPIES OF THE HFE GENE PATHOGENIC VARIANT: C282Y/C282Y (HOMOZYGOTE)
MRI results:
Severe diffuse iron overload of the liver.
Grading of iron overload: Severity 1.5 Tesla T2* (ms) 3 Tesla T2* (ms) Normal >20 >10 Mild 10-20 5-10 Moderate 5-10 2.5-5 Severe <5 <2.5
**Based on calibration reported by Wood et al (Blood, Aug 2005; PMID 15860670), liver iron concentration (mg/g dry weight) is given by [Fe] = 0.202 + 0254*R2* when R2* is measured at 1.5T and [Fe] = 0.202 + 0.5*0.254R2* when R2* is measured at 3T.
TECHNIQUE: Multiplanar, multisequence MR images of the abdomen obtained at 1.5 Tesla without contrast
Liver: Normal morphology. Liver parenchyma is diffusely hypointense on T2-weighted images relative to skeletal muscle. No T2 hyperintense fine reticulations or suspicious lesion.
Quantitative metrics in the liver: Hepatic fat fraction is 5.5%. Normal hepatic fat fraction is less than 5%. R2* of the liver is 660Hz, which corresponds to a T2* of 1.5ms. This is indicative of severe iron overload of the liver.
Thanks ahead of time!