New Medications Found For Hemochromatosis

This post is dedicated in loving memory to Josephine Bogie Thomas, a founding board member of the American Hemochromatosis Society. Seventeen years after a late stage diagnosis, she died of liver cancer due to HFE-associated hereditary hemochromatosis (HH) on May 13, 1999 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

New Medications Found For Hemochromatosis
and other Diseases involving iron overload.

Hemochromatosis is basically a genetic disease characterized by improper processing by the body of dietary iron which causes iron to build up in a number of body parts, eventually causing organ dysfunction. It is the main iron overload disorder.

The study which has been explained in a recent issue of the Journal of Medicinal Chemistry has Raymond Bergeron and colleagues at the University of Florida explain that current treatments remove only small amounts of iron from sensitive organs such as the heart. Treatment sometimes must continue for years to remove enough iron to prevent organ damage.

Now the researchers report the synthesis and early testing in laboratory animals of a possible new generation of iron chelating drugs; compounds that remove excess iron from the body. Apart form working more efficiently than existing medications, the new compounds target specific organs such as the liver, heart and pancreas that are most vulnerable to iron-overload damage.

I will put any new findings about this procedure on the blog as soon as I hear about it.