Table 1.

Reports on efficacy of deferiprone on cardiac function and cardiac iron load.

	Type of study	Deferiprone group		Deferoxamine group		p	Outcome/reported outcome variable
		n	Outcome	n	Outcome
Clinical parameters
Borgna-Pignatti et al. [2006]	Natural history	157	0	359	0.6–3.4	<0.001	No. of cardiac events per calendar year (range)
Piga et al. [2003]	Retrospective	54	2/54 (4%)	75	15/75 (20%)	0.007	Overall ratio of patients with worsening cardiac status
Laboratory parameters
Myocardial T2* (ms)
Anderson et al. [2002]	Case control	15	34.0 (18.0–56.0)	30	11.4 (7.0–25.0)	0.020	Median (IQR)
Pennell et al. [2006]	Randomized controlled trial	29	16.5	32	15.0	0.023	Geometric mean
Perifanis et al. [2007]	Retrospective	19	35.77 (18.3)	23	23.77 (13.0)	0.001	Median (SD)
Normal range >20 ms
Left ventricular ejection fraction (%)
Anderson et al. [2002]	Case control	15	70 (6.5)	30	63 (6.9)	0.004	Mean (SD)
Pennell et al. [2006]	Randomized controlled trial	29	72.8(3.6)	32	68.7 (3.4)	0.003	Mean (SD)
Normal range 56–78%

IQR, interquartile range; SD, standard deviation.