Humira, The Efficient Medicine For Eye Inflammation

Humira is the new medicine that can hold the uveitis disease under control

New research shows that patients suffering from uveitis, also known as eye inflammation could keep their condition under control with Humira (adalimumab), the immune-suppressing medicine.

Dr. Glenn Jaffe, the lead author of the study and an ophthalmology professor at Duke University School of Medicine in Durham, mentioned that the drug would not correct the uveitis, but would make the disease stagnate. Jaffe, who is also a specialist at Humira’s maker, AbbVie, hopes that when the disease is in the stagnant stage, it won’t come back.

The Food & Drug Administration also approved the usage of adalimumab for individuals suffering from noninfectious uveitis in June.

Research shows that 40 out of 100,000 people aged mostly 20 to 40 suffer from uveitis which is usually treated with corticosteroids. These have been allowed by FDA for a long time, being the only approved treatment for uveitis, although doctors have recommended Humira off-label.

Moreover, according to the U.S. National Library of Medicine, the corticosteroids treatment comes with serious side-effects like fatigue, weight gain, acne, mood changes, and more.

Jaffe states that adalimumab blocks the proteins that produce inflammations, thus decreasing the inflammation. Before taking Humira, physicians must make sure that their patients do not have multiple sclerosis or tuberculosis because mixing the drug with these diseases the chance of infections is significantly increased.

Jaffe says that when the condition is stagnant, patients are regularly treated for about two years. If after this period, the disease still makes no signs, doctors take into consideration the attenuation of the treatment to see if the disease is still active. Jaffe mentioned being excited that this is the first time the FDA approved another medication other than steroids for the treatment of uveitis.

Jaffe and his colleagues chose at random more than 200 uveitis sufferers, and they were given either Humira or a placebo medicine. The individuals following the adalimumab treatment were administered an initial dose of 80 milligrams succeeded by 40 milligrams each two weeks. The sufferers also received a first treatment of the steroid prednisone.

The findings proved that individuals that received the placebo treatment were more likely to undergo flare-ups of uveitis than the ones taking Humira.

The average time to the outburst of the disease was 13 weeks for individuals receiving the placebo compared with 24 weeks for those taking adalimumab. However, more research into alternative therapy for the sight-threatening illness is needed before attempting to save their sight.

Image source: Wikipedia

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Nancy Young

When I was younger I used to spend almost all of my free time playing computer games. My mom and dad would go mental over this. “You’re never going to do anything with your life if you are going to play games all day” they used to say. What was even more unusual was the fact that I played more games than most of the guys in my friend group. Looking back, I have to admit that I probably played a bit too much, but I also learned a lot of great things. When I turned 20 I decided that it was high-time to make some money of my own, but the only jobs I could get were that of waitress or cashier. How exciting. After several excruciating months of serving tables I had a great idea: since I love gaming so much, why don’t I write about it? That’s when I started doing small writing projects on Elance. Eventually, I got an offer for a part-time job. During that time I learned all about content marketing strategies and how search engines work. I started writing about various topics such as technology, health and lifestyle and discovered that I was actually good at it. On November 24, 2014, I became part of the ArgyllFreePress team.