Lupus kidney failure reduced by drugs

Main Category: Lupus
Article Date: 04 Mar 2004 - 0:00 PDT

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If you have lupus and start taking two drugs you reduce your chances of developing kidney failure, say researchers. The drugs suppress the immune system.

In the USA 1,400,000 people have lupus. The bodies of people with lupus confuse healthy and foreign tissues. The result is that the lupus sufferer's body sometimes attacks both healthy and foreign tissues. About half of lupus sufferers have kidney disease.

You can read about the study in The New England Journal of Medicine.

Researchers tried the new drugs on 59 volunteers. Usually, the treatment involves injection cyclophosphamide. This give the patient a 43% protection of a relapse.

Azathioprine protects the patient for about 57% of the time. Mycophenolate mofetil was effective for 77% of the times.

The researchers say that the study was too small to decide whether mycophenolate mofetil is better than azathioprine. Mycophenolate mofetil is sold as CelCept, by Roche. Azathioprine is sold as Azasan, several other companies sell it as well.

The researchers come from the University of Miami and were led by Gabriel Contreras.

The two drugs can be administered orally and have fewer side effects than cyclophosphamide.

The team also said that their research did not monitor children or people with mild forms of lupus related kidney problems.

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