View clinical trials related to Beta Thalassemia Major.
Filter by:Silymarin, a flavonolignan complex isolated from Silybum marianum, has a strong antioxidant, hepatoprotective and iron chelating activities. The present study has been designed to investigate the therapeutic activity of orally administered silymarin in patients with thalassemia major under conventional iron chelation therapy. A 6-month randomized, double-blind, clinical trial was conducted in 140 beta-thalassemia major patients in two well-matched groups. Patients are randomized to receive a silymarin tablet (140 mg) three times a day plus conventional desferrioxamine therapy or the same therapy but a placebo tablet instead of silymarin. Clinical laboratory tests of iron status and liver function are assessed at the beginning and the end of the trial.
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.
To allow patients treated with deferasirox in the core study to continue iron chelation therapy for 2 years or until the drug became locally commercially available. To evaluate the long-term safety and efficacy of deferasirox by measuring treatment success, change in liver iron content (LIC) and change in serum ferritin levels. Safety was mainly assessed by incidence of adverse events (AEs)and clinically significant lab parameters.