| ORAL IRON CHELATOR NOW AVAILABLE |
Picture Courtesy of www.thalassemia.org |
The Food and Drug Administration advisory committee unanimously voted that to approve for patient use of the oral iron chelator EXJADE According to a spokesperson at Novartis Pharmaceuticals,
once a drug receives unanimous approval from this advisory panel, the availability of that drug to the public occurs shortly thereafter. EXJADE could be on the market by the end of November, 2005 or early December 2005.
This is great news for people who have iron overload with anemia who cannot tolerate
phlebotomy, which is the treatment for iron overload if the hemoglobin is sufficient.
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Iron Chelators:
The primary role of iron-chelation therapy is to prevent premature death from heart attack due to myocardial iron overload. Statistically 50% of patients with thalassemia major, an inherited condition that requires blood transfusion to sustain life, die of heart attack before the age of 35, primarily due to iron-related heart failure.
Other candidates for a iron chelation include any patient who has iron overload but is anemic. This group could include any patients receiving ongoing blood transfusion such as people with thalassemia major, sickle cell disease or cancer. Others with iron overload and anemia can include patients with myelodysplasitic syndrome (MDS), sideroblastic anemia, enzyme disorders, for example: glucose-6-phosphate dehydorgenase deficiency or G6PD; pyruvate kinase deficiency or PKD, Congenital dyserythropoietic anemia type II also known as HEMPAS (hereditary erythroblastic multinuclearity with positive acidified serum lysis test
Different types of iron chelation:
The type of chelation therapy used to de-iron patients described above should not be confused with EDTA (ethylenediaminetetra-acetic acid), a method used by some alternative medicine practitioners. EDTA is a broad-spectrum chelator, meaning that it binds with and removes a wide number of minerals, including iron, but it is not specific. In contrast, desferrioxamine and deferiprone, and EXJADE are highly specific for iron.
To see more information about Exjade, please click here.
To see more on Iron Chelation Therapy go to our Chelation Therapy page.
For more information, contact CAF at 800-522-7222 or info@cooleysanemia.org, or visit www.cooleysanemia.org
Other Important Links:
Previous Exjade Article
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