Sirolimus for Polycystic Kidney Disease

New treatment options for polycystic kidney disease do not come along very often. The nature of the disease is such that treatment is inherently difficult as the pathophysiology is incompletely understood. Despite that various methods are currently being investigated. One such is the drug sirolimus, which  has been mentioned before. More recently however a pilot study performed in adult polycystic kidney disease patients has added further hope that sirolimus may one day be used routinely in this disease. The effect of the drug sirolimus on development and growth of cysts was investigated over 6 consecutive months in 8 patients. Patients also received angiotensin receptor blockers which are considered standard therapy in kidney disease. A control group that consisted of another 8 patients were assigned to angiotensin receptor blocker alone. Unfortunatley sirolimus is not an innocuous drug its use results in suppression of the native immune system resulting increased risk of infection and negative metabolic effects. There is however a good history of safety in transplantation where it is used primarily. The use of sirolimus will require close monitoring for possible infectious complications if it is to provide an overall benefit. Patients with adult polycystic kidney disease already have an increased risk of infection and these may include infection of cysts and pyelonephritis which can cause sepsis. An increase in the rate of these infections would have a negative effect on ...
Source: All Kidney News - Category: Urology & Nephrology Authors: Tags: Kidney News FSGS TNF Source Type: blogs