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Sunday, February 18, 2007
The Dubai Thalassemia Center, the only one of its caliber in the Middle East, has been given high marks this week by visiting international medical experts.
Hosted in the emirate by Dr. Khawla Belhoul of the Dubai Thalassemia Center, Drs. Ali Taher and Maria Capellini are in Dubai to lecture before a large and impressive gathering of regional physicians and healthcare professionals.
They will spotlight the necessity, but also the availability, of a new breakthrough oral treatment for the removal of excess iron in thalassemia patients.
'The Dubai Thalassemia Center is of a world-class standard, both in terms of the professionals staffing the facility and in its advanced approach to therapy,' said Dr. Ali Taher who practices medicine in Lebanon and is Professor of Hematology & Oncology at the American University of Beirut Medical Center.
'In particular, we were impressed to learn that the Dubai Thalassemia Center, under Dr. Belhoul's direction, is the first center in the Middle East to dispense the Exjade iron chelation drug, as this is the primary treatment option about which we will be lecturing to regional physicians this week.'
Exjade(deferasirox), which can be taken in a drink, removes excess iron from key organs including the liver replacing the use of the cumbersome infusion pump which is needed by patients for up to 12 hours a day, five to seven days a week.
Iron chelation is often necessary to prevent potentially life-threatening complications of excess iron being stored in patients who receive regular blood transfusions for diseases such as thalassemia, myelodysoplastic syndromes, sickle cell disease and other anemias.
Blood disorders are quite prevalent across UAE and the Middle East, and patients needing regular blood transfusions used to undergo lengthy and painful iron chelation treatment.
A single dose of Exjade (deferasirox)works throughout the day, removing excess iron including highly toxic labile plasma iron, from key organs such as the liver.
The body has no inherent mechanism to remove excess iron, so iron chelation is used as an effective treatment for transfusion related iron overload. In iron chelation, an agent binds to iron in the body and tissues and helps remove it through the urine and/or faeces.
Exjade(deferasirox), is currently the only oral iron chelator approved by the FDA, and has been approved in most of the Midlle East countreis including Kuwait, UAE, Bahrain, and Qatar, KSA ,Lebanon and Jordan.
Hosted in the emirate by Dr. Khawla Belhoul of the Dubai Thalassemia Center, Drs. Ali Taher and Maria Capellini are in Dubai to lecture before a large and impressive gathering of regional physicians and healthcare professionals.
They will spotlight the necessity, but also the availability, of a new breakthrough oral treatment for the removal of excess iron in thalassemia patients.
'The Dubai Thalassemia Center is of a world-class standard, both in terms of the professionals staffing the facility and in its advanced approach to therapy,' said Dr. Ali Taher who practices medicine in Lebanon and is Professor of Hematology & Oncology at the American University of Beirut Medical Center.
'In particular, we were impressed to learn that the Dubai Thalassemia Center, under Dr. Belhoul's direction, is the first center in the Middle East to dispense the Exjade iron chelation drug, as this is the primary treatment option about which we will be lecturing to regional physicians this week.'
Exjade(deferasirox), which can be taken in a drink, removes excess iron from key organs including the liver replacing the use of the cumbersome infusion pump which is needed by patients for up to 12 hours a day, five to seven days a week.
Iron chelation is often necessary to prevent potentially life-threatening complications of excess iron being stored in patients who receive regular blood transfusions for diseases such as thalassemia, myelodysoplastic syndromes, sickle cell disease and other anemias.
Blood disorders are quite prevalent across UAE and the Middle East, and patients needing regular blood transfusions used to undergo lengthy and painful iron chelation treatment.
A single dose of Exjade (deferasirox)works throughout the day, removing excess iron including highly toxic labile plasma iron, from key organs such as the liver.
The body has no inherent mechanism to remove excess iron, so iron chelation is used as an effective treatment for transfusion related iron overload. In iron chelation, an agent binds to iron in the body and tissues and helps remove it through the urine and/or faeces.
Exjade(deferasirox), is currently the only oral iron chelator approved by the FDA, and has been approved in most of the Midlle East countreis including Kuwait, UAE, Bahrain, and Qatar, KSA ,Lebanon and Jordan.
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The nation's thalassemia community came out at the weekend to participate in a morning of fun-filled indoor snow sports activity to celebrate the new found freedom and exhilaration that comes with the UAE's approval of a new drug to treat the otherwise burdensome disease.
'Today is one of great medical significance for the UAE,' said Dr. Khaula Belhoul, Director of the Dubai Thalassemia Center, commenting on the country-wide availability of breakthrough iron chelation drug Exjade.
'We believe that Exjade will allow us to ease the pain of thalassemia sufferers by making treatment compliance easier, thus greatly reducing the possibility of patients abandoning their necessary traditional treatment regimes due to the inconvenience that comes with the use of a pump,' added Dr Belhoul.
A random study conducted in 2002 found that one in twelve UAE nationals has the traits of thalassemia, a figure which puts the UAE high on the international list of per capita prevalence for the disease trait and consequently the disease itself.
Iron overload is a cumulative, potentially life-threatening, unavoidable consequence of chronic blood transfusions used to treat certain types of rare chronic blood disorders, including thalassemia and sickle cell disease, as well as other rare anemia and myelodysplastic syndromes.
Signs of iron overload may be detected after as few as twenty units of blood. If left undiagnosed or untreated, the excess iron in the body is likely to lead to damage of the liver, heart, endocrine glands and other organs in the body.
The body has no inherent mechanism to remove excess iron, so iron chelation is used as an effective treatment for transfusion-related iron overload.
The Exjade drug, which is taken once daily as a drink, is a significant improvement over previous iron chelation treatments, which require frequent, subcutaneous infusion lasting eight to 12 hours per night for five to seven days per week as long as the patient continues to receive blood transfusions or has excess iron in the body.
'Freedom of moment and independence is what these young thalassemia sufferers want most, and today we are giving this freedom to them with the introduction of the Exjade therapy. The snow day experience, we believe, is symbolic of both newfound freedom and independence, but it also represents an uplifting experience that each participant will take with them for the rest of their lives,' said Jihad El Kaissi, Middle East regional manager, Novartis Oncology.
Exjade has been approved for use across the UAE and is available by prescription only.