Comparative Effects of Three Iron Chelation Therapies on the Quality of Life of Greek Patients with Homozygous Transfusion-Dependent Beta-Thalassemia
Figure 1
Quality of life for patients with the three different chelation treatments according to the SF-36 scale. The physical (PCS) and mental (MCS) component summary scores were calculated from data for 120 patients that had completed all parts of the questionnaire. These included 70 receiving DFX, 33 receiving DFO, and 17 receiving DFO + DFP. A statistically significant difference was noted between the chelation treatments for the PCS score (univariate analysis, ). Pairwise comparisons demonstrated that both DFX and DFO + DFP were statistically different from DFO, but they were not different from each other. The MCS score did not differ among the chelation therapies ().
