scholarly journals Iron Chelation Therapy with Deferasirox Results in Improvement of Liver Enzyme Level in Patients with Iron Overload-Associated Liver Dysfunction

2010 ◽  
Vol 2010 ◽  
pp. 1-3 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yasuo Miura ◽  
Yusuke Matsui ◽  
Hitomi Kaneko ◽  
Mitsumasa Watanabe ◽  
Mitsuru Tsudo

Iron chelation therapy (ICT) has been applied for the patients with iron overload-associated liver dysfunction since it is one of the causes of death in patients with intractable hematological diseases requiring multiple red blood cell transfusions. Recently, deferasirox (DSX), a novel, once-daily oral iron chelator, was demonstrated to have similar efficacy to the conventional continuous infusion of deferoxamine on a decrease in serum ferritin (SF) level in heavily transfused patients. We show three cases of transfusion-mediated iron-overloaded patients with an elevated serum alanine aminotransaminase (ALT). All three patients who received the ICT with DSX showed a decrease in ALT level in association with a decrease in SF level. It is suggested that DSX therapy could be considered to expect the improvement of liver damage for iron-overloaded patients with an abnormal ALT level.

Blood ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 122 (21) ◽  
pp. 3656-3656
Author(s):  
Anushka Jaffer ◽  
Rebecca Barty ◽  
Erin Jamula ◽  
Grace Wang ◽  
Yang Liu ◽  
...  

Abstract Background Chronic transfusion support plays a key role in survival and quality of life for patients with hematological disorders. However, transfusion-related iron overload (TRIO) is a significant cause of morbidity and mortality in these patients.Adequate iron overload (IO) screening and use of iron chelators, if necessary, is now standard practice in chronically transfused individuals such as hemoglobinopathy patients. Screening practices for IO for patients receiving multiple red blood cell (RBC) transfusions for other reasons (e.g. cancer) are unknown. Objective This two part study aimed to detect pediatric (Jaffer et al., 2012) and adult populations at risk for TRIO and to evaluate and compare current screening practices. Methods Children (≤ 18 years) and adults (> 18 years) receiving at least 1 RBC transfusion from January 1, 2008 to December 31, 2011 at a tertiary care academic institution were identified using a transfusion registry database. Only those receiving chronic RBC transfusions were included in the study. Chronic transfusion was defined as ≥20 units of RBC or ≥ 20 RBC transfusions dosed at 15ml/kg within 12 consecutive months where transfusions were not given in the setting of an operating room, trauma or surgical procedures, not given 7 days prior/post-surgical procedures and not all given in one day. An adjudicator resolved study inclusion ambiguity. The analysis excluded hemoglobinopathy patients. Medical records were reviewed to collect patient demographics, diagnosis, and to evaluate IO screening practices and frequency of iron chelation therapy. Results A total of 343 patients met the eligibility criteria: 27 pediatric and 316 adult patients, with mean ages of 8.1 years (SD 5.7) and 62 years (SD 12.6), respectively. Table 1 summarizes demographics, number of transfusions, and IO screening and results. Ferritin levels were checked for 12 (44%) pediatric and 227 (72%) adult patients: 2 (17%) pediatric and 30 (13%) adult patients had values<500 μg indicating no further TRIO screening was required. In the pediatric population, 81% had a cancer diagnosis, and just under a third were tested for ferritin, whereas 64% of the adults had cancer, with nearly two-thirds tested for ferritin. A statistically significant difference was observed in the percentage of pediatric and adult cancer patients screened for IO. Of those cancer patients screened, ferritin level > 500 occurred in 71% of pediatric and 85% of adult patients, with an iron chelator reported in 1 adult. Total RBC transfusions ranged from 20 to 44 with a median of 26.5 for pediatrics and 20 to 176 with a median of 31 for adults. Conclusion Despite high rates of RBC transfusion, screening for TRIO was inconsistent. Although information regarding reasons for not screening for TRIO or not treating with chelation therapy was not collected, the possibilities include a lack of awareness of the risk of TRIO and lack of access to ferriscan and/or to oral iron chelator in Canada for conditions other than hemoglobinopathy and a select subset of MDS cases. Considering TRIO presents an additional, yet unidentified, co-morbidity of cancer therapy and that the therapy (e.g. anthracyclines) may potentiate the end organ effect of TRIO, it is vital to develop strategies to evaluate cancer patients at risk for TRIO and ensure they have access to appropriate iron chelation therapy. Research is needed to explore the comorbidities associated with failure to treat TRIO and to identify barriers to treatment so cancer patients can receive optimal care. Disclosures: Leber: Novartis Canada: Membership on an entity’s Board of Directors or advisory committees, Speakers Bureau. Heddle:Canadian Blood Services and Health Canada: Research Funding.


Blood ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 118 (21) ◽  
pp. 5165-5165
Author(s):  
Christian Junghanss ◽  
Rudolf Schlag ◽  
Bernd Gaede ◽  
Matthias Moelle ◽  
Steffen Doerfel ◽  
...  

Abstract Abstract 5165 Background: Progressive anaemia is highly prevalent amongst many malignant diseases leading to RBC transfusion-dependency. Therefore transfusion-related iron overload (IOL) is common in these patients (pts) and can result in multiple organ failure. Iron chelation therapy prevents organ failure, reduces the risk of infections and can improve hematopoesis in some diseases. The once-daily oral iron chelator deferasirox has been shown to reduce iron overload in pts with various transfusion-dependent anaemias assessed by serum ferritin (SF). Despite extensive knowledge of iron chelation in MDS or beta-thalassemia pts, data in pts with other anaemias is limited. Here, we present data from a subgroup of transfusion-related IOL pts that were included two non-interventional studies (EXTEND, EXJANGE) performed in Germany and who suffered from diseases other than MDS or beta thalassemia. Methods: 130 pts with various malignant diseases such as myeloproliferative disorders (43 pts, including 31 pts particular specified as myelofibrosis), acute myeloid leukaemia (14 pts), sickle cell anaemia (6 pts), aplastic anaemia (11), congenital aplastic anaemia (5) or Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (6 pts) were treated with deferasirox in the daily-routine setting of office-based physicians and included in either the EXTEND or EXJANGE study. Patient with MDS or beta-thalassemia were also included in the studies, but are excluded from this analysis. Analysis is based on 1-year pooled data of these two, multicenter, non-interventional observational studies. Transfusion-dependent pts with IOL with or without prior chelation were enrolled and received the iron chelator deferasirox. Prescription of deferasirox, just as inclusion and exclusion criteria was in accordance with the terms of Exjade marketing authorization in the EU. Efficacy and safety parameters, including serum ferritin and adverse events (AEs), were collected in 2-monthly intervals. Results: 98 pts had no prior chelation therapy (51 M, 45 F, 2 missing; mean age 63.3, range 3.2–91.9 yrs) and a median baseline SF of 2,968 (range 561–11, 423) ng/mL. 32 pts had prior received prior chelation therapy (mainly with desferal; 17 M, 15 F; mean age 50.1, range 3.5–80.9 yrs) and a median baseline SF of 2,635 (range 539–19, 540) ng/mL. The mean number of prior red blood cell transfusions was 55. The mean prescribed daily dose of deferasirox at the first visit was 16.3 mg/kg/d rising up to 18.1 mg/kg/d after 12 months. During treatment, median SF levels clearly decreased from first to final visit [-806 ng/mL; p<0.0001 (explorative analysis)] in the chelation-naïve and also in the pre-chelated population [-300 ng/ml; p = 0.1705 (explorative analysis)]. The median observation period and days on therapy was 349 and 343 days, respectively. At final visit 74 pts (56.9%) were still on deferasirox therapy. Reasons for discontinuation by the final visit included 19 AEs (35.2%). 45 pts (34.6%) experienced an investigator assessed drug-related AE. The most common drug-related AEs were diarrhea (n=17; 37.8%), nausea (n=11; 24.4%) and blood creatinine increased (n=6; 13.3%). As in previous clinical trials, serum creatinine clearances showed a minor decrease over the study period (median decrease until final visit: 4 ml/min). Conclusion: Our analysis confirmed that deferasirox is effective and well tolerated in chelation-naïve as well as in previously chelated pts with transfusion-related IOL and diseases other than MDS or beta thalassemia. As baseline serum ferritin values were >2,500 ng/mL even in pts with prior chelation therapy, adequate chelation treatment should be considered earlier at a serum ferritin >1,000 ng/mL in pts with transfusion-dependent IOL for adequate iron chelation therapy. Disclosures: Junghanss: Novartis: Membership on an entity's Board of Directors or advisory committees, Speakers Bureau. Haus:Novartis Pharma: Employment. Junkes:Novartis: Employment. Leismann:Novartis: Employment.


Blood ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 114 (22) ◽  
pp. 2787-2787
Author(s):  
Florian Nolte ◽  
Martin Neumann ◽  
Ouidad Benlasfer ◽  
Sandra Heesch ◽  
Eckhard Thiel ◽  
...  

Abstract Abstract 2787 Poster Board II-763 Myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS) are characterized by ineffective hematopoiesis and an increased risk of evolution to acute myeloid leukemia. The majority of MDS patients will depend on regular transfusions of packed red blood cells (PRBC) during their course of disease due to symptomatic anemia. Since recurrent transfusions of PRBC will result in iron overload with the risk of damage of organs such as heart, endocrine glands and the liver, consequent iron chelation therapy (IC) became an important element of supportive care in MDS patients. Recently, the availability of the oral iron chelator deferasirox provides a convenient management of iron overload in MDS. Since intensive IC has been shown to improve hematopoiesis in iron overloaded patients we performed gene expression profiling on patients with low or intermediate MDS prior and after IC, to elucidate wheter IC leads to alteration of genes involved in hematopiesis, in particular in erythropoiesis. Heparinized bone marrow samples were obtained after informed consent from 6 MDS patients (2 refractory anemia, 4 refractory anemia with ringed sideroblasts) upon initial diagnosis of iron overload (prior IC) and after a period of 1 year of iron chelation (after IC) with the oral iron chelator deferasirox. CD34+ hematopoietic progenitor as well as CD71+ erythroid progenitor cells were isolated by high gradient magnetic cell separation (Miltenyi Biotech, Bergisch Gladbach, Germany). RNA was extracted from CD34+ cells and CD71+ cells using TRIzol reagent (Invitrogen, Life Technologies, Grand Island, NY) according to the manufacturer's protocol. Quality controlled RNA was hybridized according to the standard Affymetrix protocol to HG-U133 Plus 2.0 microarrays. Data analysis was performed using the Gene Spring Software version 4.0 (Silicon genetics, San Carlos, CA). Restrictions were set as follows: only genes that were ‘present' in at least 75% of samples were used for further analyses, genes were considered as ‘differentially expressed' when they showed at least 3 fold change between the different groups. Statistical significance was calculated by non-parametric t-test, with P < 0.05. In a first step we compared gene expression patterns of CD71+ cells in MDS patients prior and after IC. In total 106 probe sets representing unique genes, hypthetical proteins and open reading frames matched the restriction settings. In an intensive survey on these genes we identified several genes that have been associated with erythropoiesis including Stromal derived factor-1 (CXCL12), Janus kinase 2 (JAK2), and Heat shock transcription factor 2 (HSF2). To exclude that these changes in gene expression where due to the natural course of the disease in specific patients, we compared gene expression of CD71+ cells from patients after IC to an independent test set of CD71+ MDS samples (n=12). Interestingly, we still found an aberrant expression of these genes, indicating that the observed gene expression changes were related to the IC in these patients rather than to the natural course of diesease. However, we were not able to find an altered expression of these genes in CD34+ progenitor cells prior and after IC, suggesting that the effect on gene expression is restricted to CD71+ cells. Iron overload is an inevitable side effect of regular blood transfusions in MDS patients. Intensive IC has been shown to improve erythropoiesis in iron overloaded patients. We found, that IC results in upregulation of Stromal derived factor-1, Janus kinase 2 and Heat shock transcription factor 2 all of them known to regulate hematopoiesis. Moreover, HSF2 and JAK2 have been closely involved in regulation of erythropoiesis. JAK2 deficiency has been shown to result in abrogated erythropoiesis and therefore increase of JAK2 expression after iron chelation might link IC to improvement of erythropoiesis and subsequently decrease of transfusion requirement in some patients receiving IC. Disclosures: Hofmann: Novartis Oncology, Nürnberg, Germany: Research Funding.


2011 ◽  
Vol 51 (2) ◽  
pp. 66
Author(s):  
Cynthia Rindang ◽  
Jose R. L. Batubara ◽  
Pustika Amalia ◽  
Hindra Satari

Background Severe iron overload due to recurrent transfusions for chronic anemia and inadequate iron chelation therapy in thalassemia major patients result in various complications, including hypothyroidism. Currently, there has been no data on the prevalence of hypothyroidism in thalassemia major patients at the Thalassemia Centers, Department of Child Health, CiptoMangunkusumo Hospital (DCH CMH).Objective To study the prevalence of primary hypothyroidism in thalassemia major patients in the Thalassemia Center, DCH MCH.Methods We performed a cross-sectional, descriptive study. All thalassemia major subjects aged O􀁬18 years with severe iron overload underwent thyroid functionexamination. Primary hypothyroidism was defined as either normal (compensated) or decreased (decompensated) free T4 (FT4) levels, along with elevated sensitive thyroid􀁬stimulatinghonnone (TSH)levels. Results 179 subjects enrolled this study Mth male: female ratio of 1: 1.6. The prevalence of primary hypothyroidism in thalassemia majorpatients Mth severe iron overloadws26.8% (48/179). Of those 48,45 had compensated hypothyroidism and 3 had decompensated hypothyroidism, 25.1% and 1.7% of the total subjects, respectively. Compensated hypothyroidism was observed in 17 subjects aged ≤1O years and in 28 subjects aged> 10 years. All 3 decompensated hypothyroidism cases were> 10 years of age. No relationship was found between the occurrence of primary hypothyroidism and mean pre-tr811sfusion Hb levels (P=0.481, OR 1.30; 95% CI 0.63 to 2.68), elevated serum ferritin levels (P=0.74, OR 0.89; 95% CI 0.46 to 1.75), and compliance to iron chelation therapy (P=0.570, OR 0.76; 95% CI 035 to 1.65). Based on multivariate analysis, only age of <10 year-old (P=O.029, OR 0.469; 95% CI 0.23 to 0.93) was significantly associated Mth primary hypJthyroidism. Further analysis using receiver operator curve (ROC) technique found that age of 8.5 year-old was the cutoff value to predict the risk of hypothyroidism. Conclusion The prevalence of primary hypothyroidism in our study is high. The occurrence of hypothyroidism is associated with age.


1983 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 99-101 ◽  
Author(s):  
Glen H Stanbaugh ◽  
A. W, Holmes Diane Gillit ◽  
George W. Reichel ◽  
Mark Stranz

A patient with end-stage renal disease on CAPD, and with massive iron overload is reported. This patient had evidence of myocardial and hepatic damage probably as a result of iron overload. Treatment with desferoxamine resulted in removal of iron in the peritoneal dialysate. On the basis of preliminary studies in this patient it would appear that removal of iron by peritoneal dialysis in conjunction with chelation therapy is safe and effective. This finding should have wide-ranging signficance for patients with ESRD.


Blood ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 134 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. 3542-3542 ◽  
Author(s):  
Natalia Scaramellini ◽  
Carola Arighi ◽  
Alessia Marcon ◽  
Dario Consonni ◽  
Elena Cassinerio ◽  
...  

Introduction The current therapeutic management of transfusion dependent thalassemia (TDT) is based on regular blood transfusion and iron chelation therapy. Transfusion iron overload remains one of the major causes of morbidity and mortality in these patients because of the accumulation in heart, liver and endocrine glands. Three iron chelators are available in clinical practice: deferoxamine (DFO), deferiprone(DFP) and deferasirox (DFX). Guidelines clearly recommend when to start iron chelation, while discontinuation criteria are not well defined. Authorised product information state that we should consider interrupting DFX if serum ferritin (SF) falls consistently below 500mcg/L. This cut off was arbitrarily determined and there are no studies evaluating the effects of chelators in presence of SF below 500 mcg/L. In our clinical practice at Rare Diseases center of Fondazione IRCCS Ca' Granda Policlinico in Milan we do not completely interrupt iron chelation in TDT patients for SF levels below 500 mcg/L. Aims and methods Aim of our study was to evaluate the appearance of adverse events due to the assumption of iron chelation therapy in those TDT patients who had SF below 500 mcg/L. In this study we retrospectively evaluated renal and liver function from 2008 throughout December 2018 in TDT patients on DFX who presented SF below 500 mcg/L for 24 consecutive months. DFX dose are all expressed with the new tablets formulation dose. We evaluated SF, iron intake, LIC and MIC, renal and hepatic function. .A total of 5076 observations were collected, with 99.5 average per patient. We evaluated the relationships among variables with correlation models with random intercept Results One hundred ninety-two TDT patients are regularly followed at our center. They receive regular transfusion treatment and iron chelation therapy to prevent secondary iron overload. 51 out of 192 patients (32 F, 19 M, aged 44 ± 7 years) treated with DFX presented mean SF below 500 mcg/L for at least 24 consecutive months. Hematological and iron status parameters are described in Table 1. We found a strong correlation between SF and LIC (p&lt;0.001) and for SF&lt;500 mcg/L no hepatic iron overload was observed. Conversely we did not found a correlation between SF and MIC. For SF values below 500 mcg/L there was a minimal increase in creatinine levels, however the mean creatinine values remained within the normal range.Moreover, creatinine variation between two consecutive evaluation was below 0.3 mg/dl, cut off for acute kidney injury. Similar results were observed for liver function. Although a minimal increase of mean ALT value was observed for SF below 500 mcg/L, it remained within the normal range. None of our patient showed ALT level indicative of liver damage (ALT&gt; 10 x upper limit of normal) We evaluated the relation between SF and DFX dose. Mean DFX dose decreases according to SF reduction. However, for SF value &lt; 240 mcg/L, DFX dose remained stable at an average of 14 mg/kg per day. Conclusion According to our preliminary data, administration of DFX in TDT patients in presence of SF below 500 mcg/L is safe. Creatinine and ALT fluctuations, that usually remain within the range of normality, are mild, and transient and do not require specific treatment. Consistently with previously published data by Cohen et al, we show that a mean dosage of DFX of 14 mg/Kg die of film-coated tablet (20 mg/Kg of dispersable formulation) are necessary to balance an iron intake of 0.3 mg/kg die in absence of iron overload. Based on these results we suggest that in TDT patients with a continuous iron intake, iron chelation should be continued even when ferritin is below 500mcg/L. Monitoring of liver and kidney function tests are recommended in patient's follow up, as well as tailoring iron chelation. Disclosures Cappellini: Vifor Pharmaceutical: Membership on an entity's Board of Directors or advisory committees; CRISPR Therapeutics: Membership on an entity's Board of Directors or advisory committees; Celgene Corporation: Honoraria; Novartis: Membership on an entity's Board of Directors or advisory committees; Genzyme/Sanofi: Honoraria, Membership on an entity's Board of Directors or advisory committees. Motta:Sanofi-Genzyme: Honoraria, Membership on an entity's Board of Directors or advisory committees.


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