Efficacy Study of the Use of Sequential DFP-DFO Versus DFP
Status:
Completed
Trial end date:
2008-01-01
Target enrollment:
Participant gender:
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.