Cardiac size and function in children with sickle cell anemia.

Cardiac size and function were studied echocardiographically in 124 children with sickle cell anemia. A group of 78 healthy black children served as control subjects. Sickle cell patients exhibited progressive chamber enlargement and progressively increasing left ventricular mass. Although contractility indices were normal, when the opposing influences of volume overload due to anemia and ventricular dysfunction were separated, abnormalities of systolic time intervals were identified. Left ventricular systolic time interval ratio and left ventricular preejection period were higher in the sickle cell group and became increasingly abnormal with growth, suggesting that left ventricular function deteriorated with time.