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ShareScienceDaily (Nov. 28, 2006) — Scientists report progress in developing much-needed new medications for hemochromatosis and other iron-overload diseases. In these conditions, excess amounts of iron accumulate in the liver, heart, pancreas and other organs and eventually cause serious damage.
Raymond J. Bergeron and colleagues at the University of Florida explain that existing treatments remove only small amounts of iron from sensitive organs like the heart. Treatment sometimes must continue for years to remove enough iron to prevent organ damage, they note in a report scheduled for the current (Nov. 16) issue of the ACS Journal of Medicinal Chemistry, a biweekly publication.
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.
In addition to 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.
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