Articles tagged with: Iron Chelation Therapy
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The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Friday approved the drug Ferriprox for the treatment of iron overload in patients with thalassemia who have had an insufficient response to at least one other iron overload therapy.
Thalassemia is a genetic condition that causes anemia.
The FDA approval of Ferriprox (deferiprone), which will be marketed by the Canadian company ApoPharma, is in line with the recommendation the agency received from its Oncology Drug Advisory Committee, which met last month to review the drug (see related Beacon news).
At…
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Dr. Mikkael Sekeres, a myelodysplastic syndromes expert and researcher at the Cleveland Clinic, recently created a list of guidelines for the treatment of lower-risk myelodysplastic syndromes patients.
He recommended that patients with low red blood cell counts (anemia) be treated with red blood cell-stimulating agents, which produced response rates of 40 percent in these patients.
For patients who do not respond to this treatment or have other low blood cell counts, he recommended treatment with Revlimid, Vidaza, Dacogen, and Anti-Thymocyte Globulin, which produced response rates of up to 67 percent.…
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FDA Advisory Committee Recommends Ferriprox For Accelerated Approval – The pharmaceutical company ApoPharma announced last week that the Oncologic Drugs Advisory Committee to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recommended that the FDA grant accelerated approval to the iron chelation agent Ferriprox (deferiprone). Specifically, the advisory committee recommended that Ferriprox receives accelerated approval for the treatment of patients with blood transfusion-related iron overload when current chelation therapy is inadequate. The FDA normally follows the recommendations of its advisory committees but is not obligated to do so. Ferriprox has already been approved for the treatment of blood transfusion-related iron overload in Europe since 1999. Current treatment options for myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS) patients with transfusional iron overload include Desferal (deferoxamine) and Exjade (deferasirox). For more information, please see the Apotex press release.
Webinar: The Latest Developments In MDS – On September 29, the Aplastic Anemia & MDS International Foundation (AA&MDSIF) is hosting a webinar summarizing the main findings of the State-of-the-Science Symposium on MDS, which the National Institutes of Health held at the beginning of the month. Dr. David Steensma of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston will lead the webinar, which starts at 3 p.m. ET. Dr. Steensma will talk about the implications of these findings for patients and their family members. Participants will have the opportunity to ask questions at the end of the webinar. For more information or to register, please see the AA&MDSIF website.
Free Conference For MDS Patients And Their Families – On October 1, the MDS Foundation will host a free one-day conference for MDS patients and their families in Boston. The conference will start at 10 a.m. with a patient support group discussion. In the afternoon, new therapies and treatment options for MDS will be presented and discussed. Complimentary breakfast and lunch will be served. For more information, please see the MDS Foundation website.
For a more detailed listing of MDS-related events, please check the MDS Beacon Events Calendar.
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Researchers from the Czech Republic recently found that Exjade is an effective and safe treatment for the removal of excess iron in lower-risk myelodysplastic syndromes patients. Additionally, their analyses indicate that Exjade may be more effective than Ferriprox in lower-risk patients who have high iron levels in the blood.
Dr. Jaroslav Cermak, lead author of the study, presented the results at the 2011 European Hematology Association (EHA) Congress in London.
Patients with myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS) may receive red blood cell transfusions to increase low red blood cell levels. Excess iron…
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Results of a recent literature review suggest that the treatment for excess iron may increase blood cell counts and decrease transfusion dependency in a small number of transfusion-dependent myelodysplastic syndromes patients.
“In some cases, the positive effects are really impressive,” said Dr. Pellegrino Musto, an Italian researcher and one of the review authors, “but, unfortunately, the percentage of patients who experience such a positive effect is quite small.” He estimated that only 5 to 8 percent of patients see these types of effects.
Dr. Musto and his colleagues therefore suggested…