Correlation between Serum Fatty Acid Binding Protein 4 (FABP4) Levels and Cardiac Function in Patients with Thalassemia Major

Table 1

Characteristics in total patients and stratified by median of fatty acid-binding protein 4 (FABP4) levels ( ng/mL).

	Lower	Higher	Total	value
Age, years ()				0.929
Sex, (%)				0.592
Male	9 (37.5)	9 (37.5)	18 (37.5)
Female	15 (62.5)	15 (62.5)	30 (62.5)
Age of first transfusion, months ()				0.451
Transfusion interval, weeks ()				0.187
Type of chelation therapy, (%)				0.968
Deferoxamine monotherapy	2 (9.5)	2 (10.0)	4 (9.8)
Deferiprone monotherapy	8 (38.1)	9 (45.0)	17 (41.5)
Deferasirox monotherapy	10 (47.6)	8 (40.0)	18 (43.9)
Deferoxamine and deferasirox	1 (4.8)	1 (5.0)	2 (4.9)
Pretransfusion Hb, g/dL ()				0.573
Serum ferritin, ng/mL ()				0.082
FABP4, ng/mL ()				0.000

Hb: hemoglobin, Student’s -test, Mann–Whitney, or chi-square tests were used as appropriate.