Efficacy Study of the Use of Sequential DFP-DFO Versus DFP

• Status: Completed
• Trial end date: 2008-01-01
• Target enrollment: 0
• Participant gender: All

Summary

Changes in chelation treatment and transfusion practices, during the past two decades, have dramatically improved the prognosis of thalassemia major patients.Deferiprone (DFP) has been compared with deferoxamine (DFO), using different schedules of treatment, in the majority of the 13 clinical trials published between 1990 and 2008.No statistically significant difference was shown between these two interventions during, at most, 18 months of treatment.Three randomised trials that compared sequential DFP-DFO treatment versus DFO alone reported controversial results but this could be due to small sample sizes and short treatment duration. In fact, no trial with treatment duration longer than 18 months15, which reported on mortality, adverse events, serum ferritin concentrations, as well as costs has so far been published.

This long-term sequential DFP-DFO treatment versus DFP alone treatment trial was conducted to assess the impacts of these chelation treatments on serum ferritin concentrations, mortality, adverse events, and costs in thalassemia major patients.

• Phase: Phase 4
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers?: No

Details

• Lead Sponsor: Azienda Ospedaliera V. Cervello
• Treatments: Deferiprone; Deferoxamine

Criteria

Inclusion Criteria:

• Thalassemia major patients with serum ferritin concentration between 800 to 3,000 ng/ml and were over 13 years of age

Exclusion Criteria:

• Known intolerance to one of the trial treatments

• Platelet count < 100,000/mm3 or or leukocyte count < 3,000/mm3

• Severe liver damage indicated by ascites

• Heart failure