We read with great interest the manuscript written by Bayar et al. (1) entitled “Assessment of the relationship between fragmented QRS and cardiac iron overload in patients with beta-thalassemia major,” published in the February 2015 issue of the Anatolian Journal of Cardiology. In that study, they investigated the relationship between fragmented QRS (fQRS), which is a marker of depolarization ...

DEAR EDITOR, The recently published an article by Nematbakhsh et al., entitled “Protective role of silymarin and deferoxamine against iron dextran‐induced renal iron deposition in male rats,” had some interesting point’s needs to explain more. They studied rats, which were allocated to six group and they received iron dextran for a period of 4 weeks every other day, but at the beginning of week...

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...

A 1-year randomized controlled trial of deferasirox vs deferoxamine for myocardial iron removal in b-thalassemia major (CORDELIA) Dudley J. Pennell, John B. Porter, Antonio Piga, Yongrong Lai, Amal El-Beshlawy, Khawla M. Belhoul, Mohsen Elalfy, Akif Yesilipek, Yurdanur Kilinç, Tomasz Lawniczek, Dany Habr, Marianne Weisskopf, Yiyun Zhang, and Yesim Aydinok, on behalf of the CORDELIA study invest...

Background Most deaths in thalassemia major (TM) result from cardiac complications due to iron overload. No data are available in literature about possible different changes in cardiac iron in TM patients treated with sequential deferipron-deferoxamine (DFP-DFO) versus deferasirox (DFX). Magnetic Resonance (MR) is the unique non invasive suitable technique to evaluated quantitatively this issue.

A 39-year-old woman with end-stage renal disease, which was maintained on haemodialysis, developed secondary haemochromatosis after receiving blood transfusions and intravenous iron supplementation without sufficient serum ferritin concentration monitoring. The patient received intravenous deferoxamine three times a week, combined with high-dose recombinant human erythropoietin therapy and haem...

Iron in serum and urine specimens containing deferoxamine (a chelator used in treating acute iron intoxication) can be measured by the DuPont aca discrete-analyzer method for iron if 0.5 mL of a 100 mL/L solution of thioglycolic acid (mercaptoacetic acid) is added to the IRN-1 and IRN-2 test packs before their use. This reagent releases the unreactive chelated iron, allowing reliable colorimetr...