New golden era of chelation therapy in thalassaemia: the achievement and maintenance of normal range body iron stores. Response to Kontoghiorghes et al

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We have given a general description of the chelation therapy prescribed. With combination therapy it would be too complicated and not necessarily of clinical value to describe all the changes in either the dose of desferrioxamine (DFO) or the frequency of its weekly infusions. Obviously, when patients do reduce their hepatic iron to normal levels, adjustments to the frequency and dosage of DFO are made. We have indicated that what is important in patients is the individual tailoring of their chelation therapy. Drs Kolnagou and Kontoghiorghes commented: ‘the rate for achieving normalization of the body iron store range levels using the deferiprone (L1)/DFO combination could be <4 years’