Acute renal failure occurring during intravenous desferrioxamine therapy: recovery after haemodialysis.

A patient with transfusion-dependent thalassemia was undergoing home intravenous desferrioxamine (DFX) treatment by means of a totally implanted system because of his poor compliance with the nightly subcutaneous therapy. Due to an accidental malfunctioning of the infusion pump, the patient was inadvertently administered a toxic dosage of the drug which caused renal insufficiency. Given the progressive deterioration of the symptoms and of the laboratory values, despite adequate medical treatment, a decision was made to introduce haemodialytical therapy in order to remove the drug and therapy reduce the nephrotoxicity. From the results obtained, haemodialysis can therefore be suggested as a useful therapy in rare cases of progressive acute renal failure caused by desferrioxamine.