title: Managing unresponsiveness or intolerance to deferasirox therapy: a tale of two doses.
abstract: Chronic transfusional iron overload leads to significant morbidity and mortality in patients with β-thalassemia major. The once-daily oral iron chelator, deferasirox, opened new horizons for the management of transfusional siderosis. A large body of evidence is now available regarding its efficacy and safety. Nevertheless, some patients remain unresponsive or intolerant to the adverse events of the drug. Chang et al. evaluated the benefit of twice-daily dosing in this setting. The authors concluded that twice-daily deferasirox improves responsiveness and tolerability. Even though the study included only a small number of patients, it offers promising insights that should be interpreted with caution.
authors.affiliation: Department of Internal Medicine, Division of Hematology & Oncology, American University of Beirut Medical Center, Beirut, Lebanon. kmm06@aub.edu.lb
authors.forename: Khaled M
authors.initials: KM
authors.lastname: Musallam