Active clinical trials for "Thalassemia"

the aim of this study is to evaluate the effect of Spirulina compared to Amlodipine on cardiac iron overload and cardiac functions in multi-transfused children with beta thalassemia major

In this study will investigate long term safety and use of the PTG-300 in Beta Thalassemia patients.

The purpose of this research is to evaluate the effects of L-glutamine as a therapy for Sickle Cell Anemia or Sickle ß0 Thalassemia as evaluated by the number of occurrences of sickle cell crises.

This study aims to investigate the use of amlodipine, a drug that blocks the uptake of calcium into cells, in the prevention and treatment of iron overload in patients with thalassemia major. Since iron uses the same calcium channels to enter the heart, pancreas and other organs, blocking these channels might help to prevent the accumulation of iron in these tissues. The study will follow 60 patients with thalassemia major: 30 will receive amlodipine and 30 will serve as controls receiving placebo in a randomized double-blind fashion. Patients will be monitored through one year. Monitoring will occur through the measurement of blood ferritin as well as live and heart T2* by MRI initially, at 6 and 12 months.

Betathalassemia major is a disease of the blood and bone marrow. You were born with it and it has made you unable to make normal hemoglobin and red cells. You have been receiving red blood cell transfusions all your life. These transfusions do not cure your disease. The problem with transfusions is that they contain a lot of iron. With time iron builds up in your body and will eventually hurt some of your organs . Because of this buildup of iron , you are taking medicine that helps your body get rid of the extra iron. Today, the only other treatment is bone marrow or stem cell transplant. It can only be done when a matched donor is available. This is most often a brother, sister, or parent. Bone marrow transplant may cure betathalassemia major. If you have a transplant and it is successful, you will no longer have the disease. Without a matched sibling or parent, the standard treatment is to keep having transfusions. In the near future, we will be testing a new treatment for making normal hemoglobin and normal red blood cells. We have recreated the healthy hemoglobin gene in a test tube. We are able to use it and put it back into cells. This is called gene therapy. We have been able to put this gene into the stem cells of mice with thalassemia. These mice were cured. We now plan to take that gene and put it into stem cells from people who have betathalassemia major. We will then inject those stem cells back into that person's blood. In general, we can obtain more stem cells from the blood of a person than from the bone marrow . In order to do so, we must give that person a blood growth factor. The growth factor stimulates the bone marrow to make more stem cells. That growth factor is called granulocyte colony stimulating factor (GCSF), or Filgrastim. The purpose of this trial is to find out if the drug GCSF has any side effects on you, and if you will make more stem cells in response to it. This trial is not a gene therapy trial. This trial will not help your thalassemia.

This study will determine if nifedipine, a medication used to treat high blood pressure, can help treat iron overload, a condition in which the body contains too much iron. Iron overload can be caused by the body's inability to regulate iron or by medical treatments, such as multiple blood transfusions. Over time, it can cause problems with the liver, heart and glands. Treatments include reducing iron intake in the diet or removing the excess iron using medical therapies. Recently, nifedipine was found to cause iron loss in the urine of small animals. This study will see if the drug can increase the removal of iron into the urine in humans as well. People 18 years of age and older with iron overload may be eligible for this study to undergo the following procedures: Study Day 1 Participants come to the NIH Clinical Center for a medical history, physical examination, blood and urine tests, electrocardiogram (EKG) and echocardiogram (heart ultrasound). Study Day 2 Participants will collect three urine samples: one is collected over 4 hours, followed by a second over 4 hours. Both of these samples are collected at NIH in the outpatient day hospital. At home, a third urine sample will be collected over 16 hours. For 1 week before the collections, participants are asked not to drink tea or eat foods high in Vitamin C or iron. They are also asked not to take any iron chelating medications. Study Day 3 Participants repeat the same urine collections as on day 2. They collect a 4-hour urine sample at the outpatient day hospital at NIH. They will then take a 20-mg tablet of nifedipine, and remain in the clinic 4 hours for blood pressure monitoring. A second urine sample during this time. They then return home to collect the final 16-hour sample, which they bring to the clinic the following day. Again, they are instructed to avoid a diet high in vitamin C, iron rich foods, tea, and to avoid taking any iron chelating medications. ...

Because patients with beta-thalassemia are unable to actively eliminate iron from the body, toxic and eventually lethal levels of iron can accumulate as a result of repeated blood transfusions. This study will evaluate the efficacy, safety and tolerability of deferasirox.

A 1-year randomized Phase III core trial (NCT00061750) using deferoxamine as the comparator was conducted to investigate the efficacy of deferasirox in regularly transfused patients with β-thalassemia 2 years of age and older. Patients who successfully completed this main trial may continue in this extension trial to receive chelation therapy with deferasirox for an additional 4 years. The objective of this study is to assess the efficacy and long-term safety of deferasirox in regularly transfused patients with β-thalassemia 2 years of age and older.

Myocardial iron overload is the leading cause of death in patients with beta-thalassemia major (TM). Therapy with deferoxamine (DFO) combined with deferiprone (DFP) reduces myocardial iron and improves cardiac function. However, the prognosis for TM patients with established cardiac disease switched from DFO monotherapy to combined DFP/DFO chelation is unknown. Twenty-eight TM patients with cardiac disease were enrolled in a prospective study lasting 42±6 months. Fifteen (9 high-ferritin and 6 low-ferritin) were placed on DFP/DFO (DFP, 75 mg/kg t.i.d.; DFO, 40-50 mg/kg over 8-12 h at night 5-7 d/wk), while 13 (5 high- and 8 low-ferritin) received DFO alone. No cardiac events were observed among high-ferritin patients on combination therapy, whereas 4 cardiac events (p=0.0049), including three deaths, occurred in high-ferritin patients on DFO monotherapy. These findings demonstrate that in TM patients with well-established cardiac disease combined iron-chelation therapy with DFP/DFO is superior to DFO monotherapy.

This purpose of this study is to understand the differences between people who have a good response to deferasirox (exjade) compared to people who have a poor response to this medication when used for transfusion-dependent iron overload. The hypothesis is that patients with poor responses have physiologic barriers to deferasirox that may include absorption, pharmacokinetics of drug metabolism, hepatic clearance and/or genetic factors.