Regular blood transfusion along with iron chelation therapy is a supportive treatment for thalassemia major. Chelation therapy too has its side effects. The most common adverse effects associated with administration of deferiprone are agranulocytosis, neutropenia and arthralgia, primarily, of the large joints. Objective : The study was undertaken to examine the effect of deferiprone on the larg...

It will soon be twenty years since the last chelating agent was clinically approved to used against toxic metals. Even though metal poisoning has been known humankind for centuries, only about a dozen compounds, all of which are small molecules, compose pharmaceutical toolbox expel intrinsically or essential but misregulated These compounds widely suffer from various drawbacks, most critically,...

PURPOSE To determine whether low-normal body lead burden (BLB) accelerates progressive renal insufficiency in nondiabetic patients with chronic kidney diseases (CKD). METHODS One hundred eight CKD patients (serum creatinine between 1.5 and 2.9 mg/dL) with low-normal BLB (<80 microg) and no lead exposure history were observed for 24 months. Following the observation, 32 patients with low-norma...

When Policy Topic is covered A number of indications for chelation therapy have received Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval and for which chelation therapy is considered standard of care treatment. They include:  extreme conditions of metal toxicity;  treatment of chronic iron overload due to blood transfusions (transfusional hemosiderosis) and due to non-transfusion-dependent thalas...

A number of reports have appeared in literature calling attention to the depletion of essential metal ions during chelation therapy on β-thalassaemia patients. We present a speciation study to determine how the iron chelators used in therapy interfere with the homeostatic equilibria of essential metal ions. This work includes a thorough analysis of the pharmacokinetic properties of the chelatin...