IMFERON®, Iron-Dextran Complex

Iron deficiency is commonly caused by insufficient dietary intake, excessive menstrual flow, multiple births, and gastrointestinal bleeding (occult or patent) due to medications (aspirin, steroids), hiatal hernia, peptic ulcers, gastritis associated with alcoholism, anemia of chronic disease, geophagia, and tumors. After these patients are carefully diagnosed, iron supplementation is administered using oral ferrous sulfate or by intravenous therapy with an iron-dextran complex (Imferon) [28,29]. 

Hyaluronidase has been reported to elicit an oedematous reaction in the rat [58,160, 352, 353, 487, 534, 563] however, Benditt, Schiller, Mathews and Dorfman [62] showed that the spreading-factor activity and the oedema-producing factor of hyaluronidase are not the same. Other oedema-producing agents include the protein globulin [261, 303, 365,443, 563, 605,606], compound 48/80 [171, 371, 489], duodenal intrinsic factor and partially purified gastric mucin [308], soluble glycogen [10, 303] and Imferon - an iron-dextran complex [198-200, 307]. 

Parenteral preparations Iron dextran (IMFERON) Iron-sorbitol citric acid complex (JECTOFER). 

Extended X-ray absorption fine structure analysis of ferritin and imferon (a synthetic complex of iron oxide coated with dextran) show that the nearneighbour environment around the iron atom in the two macromolecules is identical. 

Iron-dextran, a synthetic therapeutic complex of iron oxide coated with dextran (Imferon ), has been shown to have properties similar to those of ferritin, a natural complex of iron oxide encased in protein.Both maintain high concentrations of iron in solution at physiological pH, and release iron relatively slowly in vivo. Extended AT-ray absorption fine structure analysis showed that the near-neighbour environment around the average iron atom in ferritin and iron-dextran is identical for the first three shells, which may explain the similarity of iron release in vivo. The results suggest that iron-dextran will be a useful model compound in studies of the relation of the iron core and protein in ferritin to function.i... 

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