Compliance of deferoxamine injection in beta-thalassaemia major patients in Iran

AIM/OBJECTIVE: Iran is located on the Mediterranean belt and has high prevalence of thalassaemia. Deferoxamine therapy requires burdensome hours of daily infusion several times a week. METHODS: We studied 510 thalassaemia major patients referring to thalassaemia tertiary care centre for compliance of deferoxamine and also assessed various reasons for non-compliance. A questionnaire was developed. RESULTS: Our study showed that 418 (82%) subjects were adherent to deferoxamine therapy. Females were more adherent to the chelation therapy. Among patients whose age was ≤ 12 years, 90.4% showed drug compliance compared with 80.3% in patients aged >12 years (P = 0.03). The most frequently reported reason for poor compliance was pain (38%). CONCLUSION: High percentage of patients had adherence to iron chelation, which is in contrast to previous studies. This may be attributed to the vigorous efforts of governmental and non-governmental organisations in educating patients and provision of free drug and equipment in the past few years. The results were satisfying but still more is to be done to increase drug adherence and to minimise reasons causing poor compliance.