Improved Oxygen Delivery to Tissues and Iron Chelator Transport through the Use of Lysed and Resealed Red Blood Cells: A New Perspective on Cooley's Anemia Therapy a

Conventional therapy of homozygous 8-thalassemia usually involves two complementary aspects, that is, an intensive transfusion program and iron chelation treatment.' Hyperor even supertransfusion are camed out to maintain a high hemoglobin content (minimal 10 g/dl to 12 g/dl for hypertransfusion or even 15 g/dl for supertransfusion) to sustain life and to relieve the symptoms of anemia. The complete suppression of endogenous erythropoiesis usually can be obtained by supertransfusion therapy. Such therapy has been improved by using young red cell (neocytes) infusion but only with a significant increase in effort and expense in order to finally obtain a reduction of the total transfused iron.**