Chelation therapy for secondary neonatal iron over load: Lessons learned from rhesus hemolytic disease

Özet

Secondary neonatal iron overload occurs with intrauterine and post-natal bloodtransfusions. Treatment with intravenous Deferoxamine was reported only infour cases in the literature. Herein we report a case of a patient born at 36weeks of gestation, who had rhesus hemolytic disease. He developed secondaryiron overload, causing liver injury, after a total of six blood transfusions: fourintrauterine and 2 post-natal transfusion therapies. Intravenous Deferoxaminetreatment was started at the age of 45 days due to a ferritin level of 40,000mg/L, progressive rise of liver enzymes, and worsening cholestasis. Treatmentresulted in marked reduction in ferritin level (down to 829 mg/L at the ageof 6 months), significant improvement in the liver enzymes, and resolutionof cholestasis