Background
Children with red blood cell disorders may receive regular transfusions from an early age and consequently accumulate iron. Adequate iron chelation therapy can prevent organ damage and ...delayed growth/development. Deferasirox is indicated for treatment of pediatric patients with chronic iron overload due to transfusional hemosiderosis; however, fewer than 10% of patients in the registration studies were aged 2 to less than 6 years.
Procedure
Deferasirox, a once‐daily oral iron chelator, was evaluated in young pediatric patients with transfusional hemosiderosis during the observational 5‐year ENTRUST study. Patients aged 2 to less than 6 years at enrollment received deferasirox according to local prescribing information, with the primary objective of evaluating safety, specifically renal and hepatic function. Serum ferritin was observed as a surrogate efficacy parameter.
Results
In total, 267 patients (mean age 3.2 years) predominantly with β‐thalassemia (n = 176, 65.9%) were enrolled. Mean ± standard deviation deferasirox dose was 25.8 ± 6.5 mg/kg per day over a median of 59.9 months. A total of 145 patients (54.3%) completed 5 years’ treatment. The proportion of patients with two or more consecutive postbaseline measurements (≥7 days apart) of serum creatinine higher than age‐adjusted upper limit of normal (ULN) and alanine aminotransferase more than five times the ULN was 4.4% (95% confidence interval CI: 2.1–7.9) and 4.0% (95% CI: 1.8–7.4), respectively. Median serum ferritin decreased from 1,702 ng/ml at baseline to 1,127 ng/ml at 5 years. There were no new safety signals.
Conclusions
Safety and efficacy of deferasirox in young pediatric patients in this long‐term, observational study in everyday clinical practice were consistent with the known deferasirox profile.
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