Background: Iron extra load is an anticipated and lethal consequence of chronic blood transfusion in major beta-thalassemia patients; therefore it is necessary to use an efficient iron chelator drug to stimulate the evacuation of the surplus iron from the body. This trial was performed to compare myocardial and hepatic magnetic resonance imaging T2 (MRI T2*) results of beta-thalassemia patients...

Current iron chelation therapy consists primarily of DFO (desferrioxamine), which has to be administered via intravenous infusion, together with deferiprone and deferasirox, which are orally-active chelators. These chelators, although effective at decreasing the iron load, are associated with a number of side effects. Grady suggested that the combined administration of a smaller bidentate chela...

Thalassemia is a chronic hereditary disease in which patients with severe disease present with anemia during their first year of life. In Thailand, stem cell transplantation is not an option for most patients. Supportive treatments, such as blood transfusions and iron chelation are used. Little data exists regarding the Health Related Quality of Life (HRQoL) of these patients. We conducted a st...

The design of antioxidant pharmaceuticals is a major challenge for the treatment of many clinical conditions and in aging. Free radical damage (FRD) is primarily catalysed by iron catalytic centers. Most of the natural and synthetic antioxidants are ineffective in inhibiting FRD because of the achievement of low concentrations at the affected tissues. Despite that many chelators inhibit FRD in ...

Histochemical and MRI studies have demonstrated that MS (multiple sclerosis) patients have abnormal deposition of iron in both gray and white matter structures. Data is emerging indicating that this iron could partake in pathogenesis by various mechanisms, e.g., promoting the production of reactive oxygen species and enhancing the production of proinflammatory cytokines. Iron chelation therapy ...

A 10-year-old girl with steroid-resistant Diamond-Blackfan anemia (DBA) developed agranulocytosis 9 weeks after chelation with deferiprone was initiated (45 mg/kg daily, 60% of recommended dose) in addition to her ordinary deferoxamine therapy. The blood counts, checked weekly, dropped markedly between weeks 8 and 9. She rapidly developed a septicemia and was admitted with high fever (40.9 degr...

BACKGROUND Cardiac complications due to iron overload are the most common cause of death in patients with thalassemia major. The aim of this study was to compare iron chelation effects of deferoxamine, deferasirox, and combination of deferoxamine and deferiprone on cardiac and liver iron load measured by T2* MRI. METHODS In this study, 108 patients with thalassemia major aged over 10 years wh...

In an attempt to design ligands which require both a high iron(III) affinity and a low iron(II) affinity, the 3-hydroxypyridin-4-one structure has been modified to introduce an additional nitrogen atom in the pyridine ring to form a pyridazine. The target molecules were synthesized from a chlorine-substituted pyridazine using step-by-step methoxylations. A total of six 3- and 5-hydroxypyridazin...

Labile iron in hemosiderotic plasma and tissue are sources of iron toxicity. We compared the iron chelators deferoxamine, deferiprone and deferasirox as scavengers of labile iron in plasma and cardiomyocytes at therapeutic concentrations. This comprised: chelation of labile plasma iron (LPI) in samples from thalassemia patients; extraction of total cellular iron; accessing labile iron accumulat...