Event Monitoring System . Compliance assessed by the Medication

Accepted 20 August 1991 Abstract The accurate assessment of patient compliance is especially crucial in evaluating the efficacy of a new treatment. Because of the problems associated with parenteral desferrioxamine, the development of a safe, effective, and convenient iron chelator is of high priority. The high morbidity and mortality associated with iron overload requires careful evaluation of the ability of any new agent to promote long term effective iron chelation. Patients' compliance with an ora}ly available chelating agent, 1,2,-dimethyl-3-hydroxypyrid4-one (LI), that has been demonstrated to induce in vivo iron excretion equivalent to that of desferrioxamine during supervised short term administration, was examined. Compliance was assessed in seven patients by patient inverview, by daily diaries reviewed monthly with each patient, and with the use of the Medication Event Monitoring System (MEMS) standard pill bottles with micro-