Posted On: 09/29/2016 10:52:13 AM
Post# of 72447
Several key differences: even though that drug is "administered by subcutaneous injection" (which means patients can probably do it themselves) -- it's still an injection.
Presumably this is a life-long process. We don't know if Prurisol needs to be taken continuously, or if one course of treatment is a cure, or if there would be courses of treatments followed by periods of remission, and then further courses of treatments needed. (Naturally, this is assuming that Prurisol works as well in humans as it did in rodents, which we won't know until the next clinical trial tries higher doses over longer periods of time.)
As far as side effects, one of the scary things with all drugs than involve the immune system is that we don't know what the side effects will be over decades. If someone gets cancer after 10 years on a drug, was it the drug that caused it, or would the person have gotten cancer anyway? No way of knowing. Conclusions can be drawn with statistics over large populations, if similar groups can be identified (life style factors the same, with the only difference being whether people took the drug or not) -- but that requires a very large group of patients, and someone with the money and desire to do such a study. I can't imagine a drug company would WANT to do such a comparison to see if their drug was safe over time.....
Presumably this is a life-long process. We don't know if Prurisol needs to be taken continuously, or if one course of treatment is a cure, or if there would be courses of treatments followed by periods of remission, and then further courses of treatments needed. (Naturally, this is assuming that Prurisol works as well in humans as it did in rodents, which we won't know until the next clinical trial tries higher doses over longer periods of time.)
As far as side effects, one of the scary things with all drugs than involve the immune system is that we don't know what the side effects will be over decades. If someone gets cancer after 10 years on a drug, was it the drug that caused it, or would the person have gotten cancer anyway? No way of knowing. Conclusions can be drawn with statistics over large populations, if similar groups can be identified (life style factors the same, with the only difference being whether people took the drug or not) -- but that requires a very large group of patients, and someone with the money and desire to do such a study. I can't imagine a drug company would WANT to do such a comparison to see if their drug was safe over time.....
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