Less-Toxic Drug for Lupus

Oct. 27 -- For many women, a lupus diagnosis means a lifetime of painful flare-ups and drugs with terrible side effects.

But after 30 years with no new treatments, some doctors have welcomed a drug called CellCept, which they are predicting will yield a much-improved quality of life for lupus patients, and possibly open the door to primary care physicians assuming a greater role in lupus treatment.

A new study released at the American College of Rheumatology annual meeting on Friday finds that CellCept is just as effective as the current lupus drug, Cyclophosphamide (known as Cy), but CellCept has far fewer side effects than Cy.

Side effects from Cy include a high risk of infection, severe nausea, and infertility.

"It's the silent women's health disease that no one is talking about," says Sandra Raymond, president of the Lupus Foundation of America. Systemic lupus erethematosus (SLE) is an auto-immune disorder in which the immune system attacks healthy tissues, including skin, kidneys and the brain.

Of the 1.5 million Americans battling lupus, most are young women, aged 20-40.

Rheumatologist Erin Arnold from the Illinois Bone and Joint Institute said the use of Cy was "dictated by the side effects of therapy. Because of the risk … patients are either reluctant to comply or are simply unable."

Dr. John Hardin, a rheumatologist from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine said Cy was a difficult drug to administer and very toxic.

"It is not just patient compliance [that's a problem]; it is the difficulty overall of managing a drug that suppresses the immune system to such a degree that the treatment can be as bad as the disease," Hardin said.

What Is CellCept?

Like Cy, CellCept suppresses the immune system to counteract the immune system's attack on healthy tissue. CellCept has been used for years to prevent rejection in organ transplants, but only in the last 1-2 years did doctors begin using it to treat lupus.

The study released this week was the first multicenter, U.S. study that performed a head-to-head comparison of CellCept versus Cy. A total of 130 lupus patients with advanced lupus nephritis (lupus of the kidneys) took either Cy or CellCept for six months.