Drug can improve upon chelation therapy in thalassemia major

“Perhaps we would have needed to monitor these patients for a longer period to see the benefits of preventive therapy with amlodipine for people who don’t have excess iron in their organs,” Dr Fernandes said.

“For those who do, however, the results show it’s worth using amlodipine. There’s no need to change the existing therapy. It’s enough to administer the anti-hypertensive orally every day.”

There were 4 mild adverse events in the amlodipine arm but none in the placebo arm (13% vs 0%, P=0.11).

Three patients (10%) in the amlodipine arm had their initial dose of 5 mg/day reduced to 2.5 mg/day because of mild ankle edema (n=2) and dizziness (n=1). One patient had a mild cutaneous allergic reaction and stopped receiving amlodipine after 15 days but continued on study.

There were no deaths or hospital admissions due to cardiovascular complications during the trial.