Iron Chelation Therapy in Beta Thalassemia

Abstract

Background: Iron accumulation is an inevitable consequence of chronic blood transfusions and results in serious complications in the absence of chelation treatment to remove excess iron. Desferioxamine reduces morbidity and mortality although the administration schedule of slow, parentral infusions several days each week limits compliance and negatively affects long-term outcome, so different strategies have been developed to overcome these problems such as deferiprone or deferasirox alone or dual chelator therapy.