The form of iron oxide deposits in thalassemic tissues varies between different groups of patients: a comparison between Thai β-thalassemia/hemoglobin E patients and Australian β-thalassemia patients

摘要

Mossbauer spectra of 12 β-thalassemia/hemoglobin E spleen samples from Thai patients who had not received multiple blood transfusions and chelation therapy and seven β-thalassemia spleen samples from Australian patients who had received multiple blood transfusions and chelation therapy were recorded with sample temperatures of 78 K. Each spectrum was found to consist of a superposition of a relatively intense central doublet characteristic of high-spin Fe(III), a low intensity sextet of peaks due to magnetic hyperfine-field splitting, and occasionally a doublet that could be attributed to heme iron. A significant (P = 0.01) difference (Kolmogorov-Smirnov statistic of 0.71) between the distributions of sextet signal intensity as a fraction (F_s) of the total non-heme iron Mossbauer spectral signal for the two groups of patients was detected. The distribution of F_s for the Thai β-thalassemia/hemoglobin E spleens had a mean value of 0.128 (S. D. 0.035) while that for the Australian β-thalassemia spleens had a mean of 0.27 (S. D. 0.12). No significant difference between the distributions of non-heme iron concentrations in the tissues for the two groups of patients was detected by atomic absorption spectrometry. This study shows that the Australian β-thalassemia patients had a higher fraction of their non-heme spleen iron in a goethite-like form than the Thai β-thalassemia/Hb E patients.