Our foundation is a Nationally recognized 501(c)(3) charity named after 12-year-old
Brittany Balser, who, after a 4-week fight with the disease in Children's Hospital
in Columbus, Ohio, lost her life to TTP. The foundation is a public charity dedicated
to raising funds to work with doctors and medical centers around the United States
who are actively using their medical knowledge, and their resources to find a better
cure for this horrible disease |
Foundation News
Published Online: 28 Aug 2008 Research Article
This article on the breakthroughs in research by Dr. Cataland appeared in this very instrumental publication. This research has been partially funded by our foundation.
Effect of prophylactic cyclosporine therapy on ADAMTS13 biomarkers in patients with idiopathic thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura  |
| Spero R. Cataland 1 *, Ming Jin 2, Shili Lin 3, Eric H. Kraut 1, James N. George 4, Haifeng M. Wu 2 |
1Division of Hematology/Oncology, Department of Internal Medicine, Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio
2Department of Pathology, Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio
3Department of Statistics, Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio
4Department of Biostatistics and Epidemiology, University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
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| email: Spero R. Cataland (spero.cataland@osumc.edu) | *Correspondence to Spero R. Cataland, Department of Internal Medicine, Ohio State University College of Medicine and Public Health, 320 W. 10th Ave., 306B Starling Loving Hall, Columbus, OH 43210 Conflict of Interest: Nothing to report. Funded by:
 National Institutes of Health; Grant Number: K08HL03279
Ohio Biomedical Research and Technology Transfer Commission, Britt Balser Foundation for TTP
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| Several reports have been published regarding the use of cyclosporine (CSA) in the treatment of idiopathic thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura (TTP). We hypothesized that prophylactic CSA therapy may prevent recurrences in patients with a history of multiple relapses of TTP. Nineteen patients with idiopathic TTP were enrolled on prospective studies at Ohio State University between September 2003 and May 2007. Patients achieving remission remained on CSA therapy for 6 months, allowing us to evaluate the efficacy of CSA as prophylactic therapy. CSA was administered orally at a dose of 2-3 mg/kg in twice a day divided dose in all patients and continued for a total of 6 months. Long-term clinical follow-up with serial analysis of ADAMTS13 biomarkers during and after CSA therapy were performed to evaluate the efficacy of CSA as a prophylactic therapy. 17/19(89%) patients completed 6 months of CSA therapy in a continuous remission. Two patients relapsed during therapy with CSA and seven patients relapsed after discontinuing CSA therapy. Ten patients have maintained a continuous remission a median of 21 months (range, 5-46) after discontinuing CSA. The ADAMTS13 data suggest that CSA resulted in a significant increase in the ADAMTS13 activity during therapy with CSA. 8/9(89%) relapsing patients had severely deficient ADAMTS13 activity (<5%) suggesting this is a significant risk factor for relapse of TTP. These data support the hypothesis that prophylactic CSA improves the ADAMTS13 activity and may be effective at preventing relapses in patients at risk for recurrences of TTP Am. J. Hematol., 2008. © 2008 Wiley-Liss, Inc. |
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