I got a little carried away and found many links in the past couple of weeks and found some great links. So enjoy!
LDN for Anti-inflammatory treatment chronic pain
For a while now I have been blogging about low dose naltrexone (LDN) and how it really has shown benefits for Crohn's patients here, Originally approved for alcoholics in the late 1980's the drug has shown promise for people with Crohn's disease and other chronic illnesses. Since 2007 Dr. Jill Smith of Penn State has shown that LDN has helped Crohn's patients with very limited side effects. The only problem is the trials for LDN are small (< 50 patients). For major drugs you generally needed hundreds of patients.
This article talks about how low dose naltrexone is low cost and well tolerated. However, the article points out that the sample sizes are low and replications of studies have not occurred. The article does finally conclude that LDN may possibly be used for management of chronic pain disorders
Traveling Increased Risk of Crohn's
This is probably a favorite study of mine and something I have been wondering about for a while. It seems as if traveling in an airplane could induce some inflammation. An even better study would be to take a c-reactive test while in the air and then when people land to see if it changes. The thinking is that hypoxia can lead to inflammation in the gastrointestinal track. The patients who frequently traveled and go to places above 2,000 meters had more flare ups when compared to patients in remission.
Patients Benefit From Second Treatment of Remicade (Infliximab)
In a study where 29 patients who had Crohn's disease who took Remicade (infliximab) and Humira (adalimumab) restarted Remicade. The conclusion was that a second treatment of Remicade after Remicade or Humira don't work could help.
Patent Awarded to Avaxia for Oral Anti-TNF for Inflammatory Bowel Disease
Drug company Avaxia Biologics filed a patent (AVX-470) in order to deliver anti-TNF (Remicade and Humira) to patients. I had read before that creating an oral anti-TNF would be difficult because of the way the digestive track broke down the medicine. The drug it looks like the Phase 1b clinical trials are for ulcerative colitis.
Qu Biologics Opens Crohn's Trial to U.S. Participants
I have been following Qu Biologics for a while. The company is a small Canadian company that has probably come up with the most novel therapy to treat Crohn's. The company uses Site Specifics Immunomodulators (SSI) which are used in order to reboot the immune system. 60 patients are being used in the drug trial. 10 patients have already been treated and the results are pretty good. 70% of patients showed a full resolution of clinical symptoms after 3 months or more. 40% of the 70% or (28% of the overall patients) had sustained clinical remission after discontinuing all medications (including the SSI treatment)! This is pretty amazing that patients were able to not only stop the actual treatment but all other treatments. Hopefully SSIs can be used to help people with Crohn's in the near future.
Showing posts with label remicade. Show all posts
Showing posts with label remicade. Show all posts
Monday, March 10, 2014
Sunday, September 15, 2013
Weekend Links: Smoking, Fecal Transplants for IBD, Remicade Generic, Crohnology, and Lasers for IBD
Smoking and Crohn's
This article studied people who smoke and use to smoke and found that patients who smoked required more treatment that non-smokers. Smokers were more likely to have strictures, receive steroids, immunosuppressants, or on anti-TNF drugs (this tells me the smokers had more moderate to severe cases of Crohn's). Last year I did a post showing that showed that smokers were more likely to require surgery than non smokers (80% increase actually). Also in that post I mentioned that at 10 years the need for repeat surgery was only 41% for nonsmokers and 70% for smokers. The policy recommendation would be to obviously stop smoking.
Fecal Transplants Treating Bowel Diseases
Early data from a study out of Canada shows that fecal transplant may help people with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). Canada actually has the highest rate of Crohn's disease in the world. The study plans to look at 120 people (as I write this 60 patients have been treated so far). Patients are using enemas in this trial. Dr. Paul Moayyedi said that some patients have done extremely well so far and one patient was in remission for 6 months. Patient Anna Fernande has been in remission since last fall (she has ulcerative colitis). Personally I believe fecal transplants will help the people with ulcerative colitis more than Crohn's. Perhaps researchers can study why this is the case.
Remicade Going Generic?
It looks like Remicade might be going generic in Europe at least. Drug companies are given a patent to market and sell a particular drug for a decade. However, after this time period a drug then become a generic and usually the cost is substantially less. The generic and the real drug made are on the molecular level however in practice and be a little different. However, with biologics this is trickier to do since you aren't replicating a pill. Inflectra would be what is known as a biosimilar to Remicade. What is interesting is in a trial of people with rheumatoid arthritis patients actually did better under Inflectra (the biosimilar) than Remicade the more expensive drug! Inflectra also showed that is had similar side effects as Remicade. Estimates show that biosimilars could save patients $23 billion by the year 2020. However, one issue is this would only be approved in Europe and not the United States. Perhaps we should have some reciprocal approval program to where if a drug is approved in one country it can be approved in other countries.
Crohnology: Crohn's Patients Helping Other Crohn's Patients
This is a pretty good article on a website Crohnology (which I am a member of) were people with Crohn's and ulcerative colitis discuss what they prescriptions they are on and how they deal with Crohn's. The website is powerful in terms of you can track your health everyday and get a text message that asks how you are doing. Crohnology was founded in 2011 and already has over 4,200 people. Patients helping others is wonderful and there may be important knowledge in Crohnology that researchers could use to better understand this horrible disease.
Laser Peers Through Intestinal Walls
A new laser could be used to help determine if a patients needs a colonoscopy or biopsy. The technology can give doctors a more focused approach to where the biopsy needs to take place instead of guessing.
This article studied people who smoke and use to smoke and found that patients who smoked required more treatment that non-smokers. Smokers were more likely to have strictures, receive steroids, immunosuppressants, or on anti-TNF drugs (this tells me the smokers had more moderate to severe cases of Crohn's). Last year I did a post showing that showed that smokers were more likely to require surgery than non smokers (80% increase actually). Also in that post I mentioned that at 10 years the need for repeat surgery was only 41% for nonsmokers and 70% for smokers. The policy recommendation would be to obviously stop smoking.
Fecal Transplants Treating Bowel Diseases
Early data from a study out of Canada shows that fecal transplant may help people with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). Canada actually has the highest rate of Crohn's disease in the world. The study plans to look at 120 people (as I write this 60 patients have been treated so far). Patients are using enemas in this trial. Dr. Paul Moayyedi said that some patients have done extremely well so far and one patient was in remission for 6 months. Patient Anna Fernande has been in remission since last fall (she has ulcerative colitis). Personally I believe fecal transplants will help the people with ulcerative colitis more than Crohn's. Perhaps researchers can study why this is the case.
Remicade Going Generic?
It looks like Remicade might be going generic in Europe at least. Drug companies are given a patent to market and sell a particular drug for a decade. However, after this time period a drug then become a generic and usually the cost is substantially less. The generic and the real drug made are on the molecular level however in practice and be a little different. However, with biologics this is trickier to do since you aren't replicating a pill. Inflectra would be what is known as a biosimilar to Remicade. What is interesting is in a trial of people with rheumatoid arthritis patients actually did better under Inflectra (the biosimilar) than Remicade the more expensive drug! Inflectra also showed that is had similar side effects as Remicade. Estimates show that biosimilars could save patients $23 billion by the year 2020. However, one issue is this would only be approved in Europe and not the United States. Perhaps we should have some reciprocal approval program to where if a drug is approved in one country it can be approved in other countries.
Crohnology: Crohn's Patients Helping Other Crohn's Patients
This is a pretty good article on a website Crohnology (which I am a member of) were people with Crohn's and ulcerative colitis discuss what they prescriptions they are on and how they deal with Crohn's. The website is powerful in terms of you can track your health everyday and get a text message that asks how you are doing. Crohnology was founded in 2011 and already has over 4,200 people. Patients helping others is wonderful and there may be important knowledge in Crohnology that researchers could use to better understand this horrible disease.
Laser Peers Through Intestinal Walls
A new laser could be used to help determine if a patients needs a colonoscopy or biopsy. The technology can give doctors a more focused approach to where the biopsy needs to take place instead of guessing.
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