Background: Thalassemic patients demonstrate an increased rate of extracardiac vascular complications and increased carotid wall intima-media thickness (cIMT), but very low prevalence of coronary artery disease (CAD). We investigated the atheroma burden by assessing the coronary artery calcium (CAC) and cIMT in these patients.
Methods: We examined 37 patients with β-thalassemia and 150 healthy control volunteers with multi-detector computer tomography (CT) and ultrasonography to determine CAC score and cIMT, respectively.