TY - JOUR AU - R Origa, AU - P Bina, AU - A Agus, AU - G Crobu, AU - E Defraia, AU - C Dessi, AU - G Leoni, AU - PP Muroni, AU - R Galanello, PY - 2005/10/01 Y2 - 2024/03/28 TI - Combined therapy with deferiprone and desferrioxamine in thalassemia major JF - Haematologica JA - haematol VL - 90 IS - 10 SE - Articles DO - 10.3324/%x UR - https://haematologica.org/article/view/3686 SP - 1309-1314 AB - BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Effective and convenient iron chelation remains one of the main targets of clinical management of thalassemia major. The combined treatment with desferrioxamine and deferiprone could have an increased chelation efficacy and sometimes allow drug doses and toxicity to be reduced and the number of days of desferrioxamine infusion to be decreased, improving compliance and quality of life. DESIGN AND METHODS: We used combined therapy with desferrioxamine and deferiprone to treat 79 patients with severe iron overload (serum ferritin higher than 3000 ng/mL) who had low compliance with subcutaneous desferrioxamine. RESULTS: Total therapy exposure was 201 patient-years. Three patients developed agranulocytosis and seven mild neutropenia. Other adverse effects were nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain, increased concentrations of liver transaminases and joint pain. The efficacy of combined therapy was evaluated in 64 patients treated for at least 12 months. Ferritin decreased from 5243+/-2345 to 3439+/-2446 ng/mL, p