Deferiprone versus deferoxamine in patients with thalassemia major: a randomized clinical trial.

Deferiprone has been suggested as an effective oral chelation therapy for thalassemia major. To assess its clinical efficacy, we compared deferiprone with deferoxamine in a large multicenter randomized clinical trial. One-hundred forty-four consecutive patients with thalassemia major and serum ferritin between 1500 and 3000 ng/ml were randomly assigned to deferiprone (75 mg/kg/day) (n = 71) or deferoxamine (50 mg/kg/day) (n = 73) for 1 year.