New Drug may Reduce Inflammation During Heart Surgery
By Heather Kohn, Ivanhoe Health Correspondent
Reported July 21, 2005
ORLANDO, Fla. (Ivanhoe Newswire) — A new drug is under study that may reduce the inflammation associated with the heart-lung machine patients typically go on during heart surgery.
As taking the blood out of the body and then putting it back in is a necessity, but abnormal process done during heart surgery with the heart-lung machine, researchers have made numerous attempts to prevent the natural response of inflammation. Inflammation can damage organs and contribute to subsequent heart attack, stroke or death. Now, there may be effective treatment.
Pexelizumab — an investigational drug — was shown to have capabilities to reduce inflammation in a phase I study. The drug is designed to block specific dangerous components of the complement pathway. The complement pathway is an activation system with molecules that can cause microthrombosis and organ damage.
In an international phase II trial currently underway, researchers are looking at patients most susceptible to inflammation — such as those who have suffered heart attacks or strokes.
Kevin Landolfo, M.D., a cardiothoracic surgeon at The Medical College of Georgia in Augusta, Ga., tells Ivanhoe, “We hope [the drug] will reduce the injury after bypass and lower the incidence of heart attacks, stroke, and mortalities after surgery. This may in fact help get [patients] through this early time after the operation.” Dr. Landolfo adds although there are no data out yet, there are “very encouraging, positive trends among patients most at-risk.”
Dr. Landolfo says, “This is the first commercially-available bullet designed to target the most dangerous, activated molecules in the complement system. If it proves effective, we may be using this drug in most patients having heart surgery, and we may see less injury to vital organs for patients who undergo cardiac surgery.”
Results from the phase II trial could be available in the next six to seven months, and it would be another two to three years before pexelizumab would be FDA-approved and in routine use, according to Dr. Landolfo.
SOURCE: Ivanhoe interview with Kevin Landolfo, M.D., a cardiothoracic surgeon at The Medical College of Georgia in Augusta, Ga.