New Treatment for Crohn's Disease
Posted on: Thursday, 19 July 2007, 00:09 CDT
Certolizumab pegol effectively treats the symptoms of Crohn's disease and produced a nearly 50-percent remission rate at six months, says a U.S. study.
Mayo Clinic researcher William Sandborn led the two-armed study, which is the first clinical trial for Crohn's disease to run longer than 12 weeks.
The researchers first studied 662 adults with moderate to severe Crohn's disease in a placebo-controlled trial.
After six weeks, 35 percent of the certolizumab group experienced an improvement in their symptoms compared to 27 percent of patients on placebo.
The second study involved 668 patients, 428 of whom had experienced improved symptoms on certolizumab after six weeks.
After six months of maintenance therapy on the medication, 63 percent of patients who received certolizumab had improved symptoms and 48 percent were in clinical remission, compared to no remissions and a 29 percent improved symptom rate in the placebo group.
Certolizumab blocks tumor necrosis factor and, like all drugs of this class, lowers resistance to infection.
The drug has not yet been approved by the Food and Drug Administration, and the researchers are currently conducting in trials that study the drug's effects beyond six months.
The research is published in the July 18 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.
Source: United Press International
Related Articles
- Ocera Therapeutics Presents Data on AST-120 in Patients With Hepatic Encephalopathy at the European Association for the Study of Liver Disease Annual Meeting
- Independent Study Corroborates Prana's Strategy to Treat Alzheimer's Disease Patients.
- Artery Disease Patients Show Improvement With Walking Therapy
- CIMZIA(R) (Certolizumab Pegol) Reduces Intestinal Lesions and Induces Endoscopic Improvement in Crohn's Patients
- Only 44.4 Percent of Parkinson's Disease Patients Receive Drug Treatment Within One Year of Being Diagnosed
- Sixty-One Percent of Newly Diagnosed Parkinson's Disease Patients Do Not Receive Any Drug Treatment in the First Year of Diagnosis
- Study Shows Applied NeuroSolutions' Test Improves Early Detection and Accurate Diagnosis of Alzheimer's Disease
- The Expected Toxicity Rate at the Maximum Tolerated Dose in Bridging Studies in Alzheimer's Disease
- New Study Data in December 9th New England Journal of Medicine Shows Medication May Help Parkinson's Disease Patients With Dementia
- Pretransplant Psychiatric and Medical Comorbidity of Alcoholic Liver Disease Patients Who Received Liver Transplant
 |
 |
User Comments (0)
RSS Feeds