European Journal of Cardiovascular Medicine

Background. ECG is a simple non-invasive tool for assessing prognosis in the Adult Sickle cell anaemia patient as pathological changes occur early in adolescents. It is suggested that ECG should be done annually for SCA   patients and those with LVH should be placed on primary prophylaxis. Aims and Objective: This study was undertaken with an aim to ascertain the electrocardiogram analysis in adult patients with sickle cell anemia and without sickle cell anaemia Methodology. In this case control, cross sectional study 60 sickle cell patients from study and control group attending the medicine OPD were confirmed by HPLC analysis by using D-10TM Dual HbA2/F/A1c 220-0201kit. Anthropometric parameters like age, weight, height, BMI, sex and medications of all patients were taken. A 12 lead ECG was recorded on all subjects, speed of a paper was 25 mm/sec and standardized at 0.1mv/mm. A single observer was analysed the ECG. The Heart rate, Cardiac Axis, PR interval, QRS duration and QTc interval were measured. The dispersion of P-wave, QRS and QTc intervals were measured manually. ST-segment was taken as the interval between the j point (or end of the ORS complex) and the beginning of the T wave. Elevation or depression of the ST-segment by 2mm or more the isoelectric line was considered abnormal. The Data was analysed by using EPI Info 7. Result. HPLC analysis confirmed 60 adult patients with Hb SS SCA had a mean age of 20±4.6. The SCA patients matched the control group in and sex, with a higher preponderance of males of 62% in both groups. SCA patients had body surface area and BMI compared with control patients of 1.19±0.01 versus 1.53±0.03 (p less than 0.01) and 20.2±1.5 versus 26.4±2.7 (p less than 0.001), respectively. The biochemical analysis in the SCA group compared with the control group are Ferritin 382.38±94.4 versus 84.1±9.3 ug/L, Hemoglobin 7.5±0.9 versus 12.19±1.6 g/dL, Reticulocyte 4.34±0.6 versus 2.52±0.3%, Vitamin D3 44.6±4.9 versus 75.3±7.1 and LDH 272.9±50.97 versus 154.5±41.6 0.1 mmol/L for each 5 g/L (p less than 0.01).  The mean QTc interval of SCA patients was 0.38±0.035 seconds and controls 0.37±0.02 seconds (p=0.123). The mean PR interval of SCA was 0.186±0.06 seconds and controls 0.169±0.036 seconds (p=0.369). the mean QRS duration of SCA was 0.07±0.09 and controls 0.043±0.14 seconds (p=0.055). Conclusion. Sickle cell anaemia is associated with significant electrocardiographic abnormalities.  Cardiac abnormalities particularly pulmonary and diastolic left ventricular dysfunction have been to be risk factors in sickle cell anaemia. The study should stimulate the use of ECG to assess adult SCA patients for early intervention to prevent cardiac events.