Is iron overload/hereditary hemochromatosis “curable”?
Iron Overload is not curable if it is genetic hemochromatosis, hereditary hemochromatosis (HH). The patient will need to be monitored and treated for the rest of his/her life. However, iron overload is curable in the case of acquired hemochromatosis such as massive doses of iron pills, etc. Once the patient is “de-ironed”, he/she will not need to be treated anymore. For HH, we hope that research in the future will find a cure for this condition, until then, treatment and early diagnosis, offer the next best thing to a cure. In fact, HH can be prevented with early genetic screening and detection of the high risk gene mutations. In such cases, patients can be genetically screened, identified, and monitored, so that they will never have high iron at any time in their lives, thusly preventing organ damage and premature death.
