Avoiding Infertility And Cancer With New Therapy For Vasculitis

Medical News Today
19th October 2009




Researchers have identified that Rituxan, a drug previously approved for the treatment of non-Hodgkin's B cell lymphoma and rheumatoid arthritis, can treat severe ANCA-associated vasculitis as effectively as cyclophosphamide, the current standard therapy. The news was presented October 18 at the annual meeting of the American College of Rheumatology in Philadelphia.

"The reason this is a big deal is that this is a disease where people would come in and be told 'listen, we are probably going to be able to get on top of your life-threatening disease by using cyclophosphamide, there is the potential for major side effects down the road from this drug,'" said Robert Spiera, M.D., an associate attending rheumatologist at Hospital for Special Surgery in New York. "This study provides strong evidence that Rituxan works as well as cyclophosphamide, at least in terms of getting patients into remission, and over that acute hump of being very ill. And, we can treat patients without the likelihood of causing infertility or causing secondary cancers, which have been a concern with the use of cyclophosphamide."

Hospital for Special Surgery was one of nine centers involved in the Phase III trial, which was led by Ulrich Specks, M.D., a professor of medicine in the Department of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine at the Mayo Clinic, and John Stone, M.D., MPH, director, Clinical Rheumatology, Massachusetts General Hospital.