title: Iron chelation therapy with deferasirox results in improvement of liver enzyme level in patients with iron overload-associated liver dysfunction.
abstract: Iron chelation therapy (ICT) has been applied for the patients with iron overload-associated liver dysfunction since it is one of the causes of death in patients with intractable hematological diseases requiring multiple red blood cell transfusions. Recently, deferasirox (DSX), a novel, once-daily oral iron chelator, was demonstrated to have similar efficacy to the conventional continuous infusion of deferoxamine on a decrease in serum ferritin (SF) level in heavily transfused patients. We show three cases of transfusion-mediated iron-overloaded patients with an elevated serum alanine aminotransaminase (ALT). All three patients who received the ICT with DSX showed a decrease in ALT level in association with a decrease in SF level. It is suggested that DSX therapy could be considered to expect the improvement of liver damage for iron-overloaded patients with an abnormal ALT level.
authors.affiliation: Department of Hematology, Osaka Red Cross Hospital, 5-30 Fudegasaki, Ten-noji, Osaka 543-8555, Japan.
authors.forename: Yasuo
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Miura
authors.forename: Yusuke
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Matsui
authors.forename: Hitomi
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Kaneko
authors.forename: Mitsumasa
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Watanabe
authors.forename: Mitsuru
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Tsudo