Organ transplant drug could help psoriasis

Press, 25 February 1987, Page 11

Organ transplant drug could help psoriasis

" By

MICHAEL CONLON

of NZPA-Reuter Chicago

Cyclosporine, the drug - which helped make r human organ transplants .commonplace, appears highly effective in treat,lng psoriasis, doctors reported.

It was the second apparent medical advance

announced recently in the battle against the scaly, itchy skin condition which afflicts up to three per cent of the world’s population. A United States university researcher had said an activated form of Vitamin D appears to be an effective treatment

In a paper published in the “Journal of the American Medical Association,” doctors at the University of Michigan Medical Centre said 17 out of 21 psoriasis patients had shown marked improvement when treated with cyclosporine. Five were completely clear of the condition after receiving high doses of the drug for four weeks.

“The dramatic response that occurred in our patients raises the possibility that if a sufficiently low, but effective dose, with acceptable side effects can be found, cyclosporine or a drug with a similar mechanism of action may become a major advance in the treatment of severe psoriasis,” the report said.

The patients in the Michigan study were given oral doses of the drug. But the researchers said it appeared that applying the drug directly to the skin “may provide excellent therapy for mild psoriasis.”

The drug suppresses the body’s immune system. Its use after organ transplants keeps the body from rejecting the new “foreign” tissue. Little is known about the cause of psoriasis. But the Michigan researchers said the cyclosporine therapy may provide clues as to how it works because the drug suppresses the function of "T” cells, key components of the body’s immune system.

“Psoriasis may have an immunologic basis mediated by activated T cells and/or other immune cells,” the report said. A major controversy in psoriasis research at the moment is whether the condition is fundamentally an immunologic disorder, it added. The patients in the Michigan study suffered side effects associated with cyclosporine — including headaches and higher blood pressure — but the conditions were not severe enough to cause the therapy to be discontinued, the report said.

The study involved the use of a hormone that is a form of Vitamin D manufactured by the kidneys. That finding appears to follow a different line of research than that reported by the Michigan group.