If this is not your name, click here.
| | If this is not your name, click here. | | |
| | Contact Us | Order Now | Journals | Bookstore | Register a colleague | | |
| |  Pamidronate Can Reverse Osteoporosis From Transplant, Cystic Fibrosis Drugs CHAPEL HILL, NC -- Oct. 19, 1998 -- Studies of Novartis Pharmaceutical Corp.’s pamidronate indicate that the drug is highly effective in partially reversing the bone weakening known as osteoporosis due to drugs taken after various transplants, including lung transplants in cystic fibrosis patients. The studies, described at the 12th annual North American Cystic Fibrosis Conference in Montreal, QC. found that patients treated with pamidronate experienced about a 10 percent reversal of bone loss caused by immuno-suppressant drugs. Drs. Robert Aris, assistant professor of medicine; David Ontjes, professor of medicine; and Gayle Lester, research associate professor of orthopaedics, all at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine, conducted the research with help from 35 cystic fibrosis patients. All patients had undergone lung transplants because of failing health. "Several clinical trials, conducted in Europe and the United States, have explored ways to stop or reverse post-transplant osteoporosis but without much success," Aris said. "We think this is the first evidence not only that you can treat osteoporosis after lung transplantation for cystic fibrosis, but also it's the first evidence of a good drug response to osteoporosis after transplant." Doctors are required to give patients steroids and immuno-suppressants such as cyclosporin to prevent transplanted tissue from being rejected. "Although these drugs prevent rejection, unfortunately they weaken bones," Aris said. "They impact bones in a half-dozen or more ways such as by blocking calcium absorption in the gut, by promoting bone resorption, or breakdown and by diminishing new bone formation. Higher fracture rates result after transplantation due in part to these immuno-suppressants." Twenty-two of 35 lung transplant patients have completed the two-year pamidronate treatment study at UNC-CH, including one who is an aerobics instructor. Most have markedly increased their activity levels because of improved lung function. Overall, patients showed a nine percent increase in their femur (hip) mineral densities and an 11 percent increase in spine mineral densities when compared with control subjects who received no pamidronate. Some 200 lung transplants take place in the world each year because of cystic fibrosis, Aris estimated, besides the 10,000 to 20,000 other kinds of organ transplants. "If you consider all the transplants that take place here and in other countries, that's a very large number of patients who could benefit from this treatment if further studies confirm its effectiveness," he said. UNC-CH researchers focused on cystic fibrosis lung transplant patients because they had severe osteoporosis, needed quick attention and had similar characteristics that would make the study more reliable, Aris said.
|
