The Star Online: Lifestyle: Health
The Star Online: Lifestyle: Health |
| Posted: New treatment could help those with bowel problems such as Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis. A NEW treatment could offer relief to those with the inflammatory bowel conditions Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis, according to findings published Wednesday in the United States. Vedolizumab, an intravenous antibody medication, offers new hope for the approximately four million people who suffer from the auto-immune diseases, say researchers who led two clinical trials, the results of which were published in the New England Journal of Medicine. The treatment resulted in remission and allowed patients to stop taking prednisone, a drug with ample side effects used to treat both diseases. "The two trials showed highly encouraging results for patients suffering from moderate to severe Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis when conventional therapy such as steroids, immune suppressive drugs and other drugs failed," said William Sandborn of the UC San Diego School of Medicine, who led the Crohn's study. "These latest findings will potentially lead to a new drug therapy that will improve a patient's overall lifestyle," Sandborn said. Vedolizumab, created by Japan's Takeda laboratory, blocks immune system cells that release proteins called cytokines that trigger inflammation, causing diarrhoea and tissue damage in the small intestine and colon. The medication could help patients avoid the weight gain, nausea and headaches associated with other treatments for the diseases. Patients could also forgo the steroids and immunosuppressive medication that put them at risk for infection. Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis cause abdominal pain, diarrhea, intestinal bleeding and weight loss. In severe cases, bowel obstruction, colon cancer, malnutrition and abscesses that necessitate removal of part of the bowel and colon can occur. Clinical trials in 34 countries followed 895 patients with ulcerative colitis and 1,115 patients with Crohn's disease, between the age of 18 and 80. Patients were treated for a year and saw effects after six weeks. Takeda, which funded the clinical trials, has asked for a green light from US and European drug regulators to allow vedolizumab to be sold on the market. – AFP Relaxnews |
| Long-term study backs early HIV drugs for children Posted: New research marks the latest advance in knowledge about antiretroviral drugs, which revolutionised the fight against AIDS from 1996. A LANDMARK five-year trial has strengthened evidence that early use of antiretroviral drugs helps children combat the AIDS virus, doctors reported on Thursday. Conducted in South Africa, the so-called CHER trial made history in 2007, after only two years, when it discovered that early treatment slashed the risk of disease and death from AIDS by 75%. The astonishing finding prompted the World Health Organisation (WHO) to overhaul its treatment guidelines in 2010 for youngsters with the AIDS virus. The WHO recommended that antiretroviral therapy be started immediately when HIV is diagnosed in children less than a year old, rather than wait until a threshold of virus infection is reached. Now completed, the CHER trial takes early-use-is-good a step further, according to results reported in The Lancet. Children who began an immediate course of drugs were able to interrupt their treatment, giving them a break from the powerful, potentially toxic drugs, researchers found. Yet even with this interruption, the infants did far better than those who started treatment later. On average, the children who received the deferred treatment began the drugs about 20 weeks after diagnosis. Those who began an immediate course of 40 weeks of drugs were able to take a 33-week break before starting treatment afresh. And those who took an immediate 96-week course enjoyed a break of 70 weeks. The trial was conducted at two sites in South Africa among 377 infants with HIV who were less than 12 weeks old. The research marks the latest advance in knowledge about antiretroviral drugs, which revolutionised the fight against AIDS from 1996. The drugs are a lifeline to millions, for they can roll back the virus to below detectable levels. But if the drugs are stopped, the virus rebounds from boltholes, called reservoirs, in cells in the body. Two other trials – both small in scale and at a very early stage – have recently raised hopes that hitting HIV with drugs very soon after infection can wipe out this hiding place. An estimated 34 million people are infected with HIV worldwide, and about 1.8 million die each year. Infants are especially vulnerable. If untreated, around half of infected newborns die before their second birthday. The new work revives hopes that flourished in the late 1990s, before the reservoir problem was identified, that patients could get a temporary holiday from AIDS drugs. "This important finding indicates we may be able to temporarily stop treatment and spare infants from some of the toxic effects of continuous ART (antiretroviral therapy) for a while, if we can monitor them carefully," said Mark Cotton, a professor at Stellenbosch University near Cape Town, who helped lead the study. Caution, though, was sounded in a commentary by Robert Colebunders of the Institute of Tropical Medicine in Antwerp, Belgium, and Victor Musiime of Makerere University College of Health Sciences in Kampala, Uganda. Treatment interruption is a risky option in poor countries, which lack laboratory facilities to monitor levels of CD4 immune cells, they said. – AFP Relaxnews |
| You are subscribed to email updates from Health To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
| Google Inc., 20 West Kinzie, Chicago IL USA 60610 | |
0 ulasan:
Catat Ulasan