(Press-News.org) DALLAS – Feb. 10, 2011 – The realization of medically treating different children uniquely may start with one of the deadliest diseases in existence: tuberculosis.
New findings by UT Southwestern Medical Center researchers indicate that the type of medications and the dosage routinely used to treat children with the disease should be individualized to each young patient in order to be effective.
The findings, available online and in the February issue of Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy, show that currently recommended doses are much too low and that a child's weight, age and medical history are among a myriad of factors that can affect his or her response to a particular drug used to combat the Mycobacterium tuberculosis bacterium, which causes the disease.
"Children are growing and changing and, unlike in adults, Mycobacterium tuberculosis manifests itself in children as many different diseases, causing problems all over the body," said Dr. Tawanda Gumbo, associate professor of internal medicine at UT Southwestern and the study's lead author. "Since their immune systems are not yet fully developed, you also have to take into consideration whether a particular drug will reach the part of the body affected by the disease.
"If you aggregate all these factors – age, weight, medical history, disease process – it's pretty clear that you need to treat each child differently instead of following the standard dosing guidelines."
About one-third of the world's population is infected with Mycobacterium tuberculosis and 2 million people die from the disease each year. TB, the leading cause of death among people infected with HIV/AIDS, kills more people than any other disease caused by a single infectious agent, according to the National Institutes of Health. Treatment usually lasts six to 12 months and includes a combination of drugs administered simultaneously, in hopes of preventing drug resistance.
For the study, the researchers virtually simulated clinical trials involving 10,000 patients who are 10 years old or younger. The computer simulation factored in pharmacokinetics (how a body handles a drug based on heterogeneous factors) to determine how likely a dose of a given drug is to kill TB. The children were grouped into three groups: fast acetylators, meaning their bodies metabolize the drugs quickly; children ages 1 to 10 who are slow acetylators; and infants who are slow acetylators.
Dr. Gumbo's team found that the drug concentrations typically used to treat children with TB are too low and that children respond differently to the standardized medication depending partly on their age and how quickly their bodies metabolize the drug.
"Despite the desire for standardized therapy, our findings support the long-held notion that there is no 'average' or 'standard' child. It is safe to assume that with 2.2 billion children worldwide, there will be 2.2 billion different regimens needed to effectively treat tuberculosis," Dr. Gumbo said.
He said the importance of the findings is that they can be applied to many other infections, including methicillin-resistant-Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA.
"This is the future, even for adults," Dr. Gumbo said. "Being able to individualize what drug someone gets and what dose – this is the future of medicine."
Dr. Gumbo's research is funded by a 2007 NIH Director's New Innovator Award, which supports bold ideas from some of the nation's most innovative early-career scientists.
Dr. Jotam Pasipanodya, research scientist in internal medicine at UT Southwestern, and researchers from the University of KwaZulu-Natal, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and the Kwa-Zulu Natal Research Institute for Tuberculosis and HIV in South Africa also contributed to the study.
###
Visit http://www.utsouthwestern.org/infectiousdiseases to learn more about UT Southwestern's clinical services for infectious diseases, including tuberculosis.
This news release is available on our World Wide Web home page at
http://www.utsouthwestern.edu/home/news/index.html
To automatically receive news releases from UT Southwestern via e-mail,
subscribe at www.utsouthwestern.edu/receivenews
Homogeneous tuberculosis treatment ineffective in children, UT Southwestern researchers find
2011-02-14
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
SMFM highlights significance of spina bifida research findings
2011-02-14
SAN FRANCISCO (February 10, 2011) — More than two thousand physicians, some of the top obstetric/gynecologists in the world who specialize in maternal-fetal medicine, especially high risk pregnancies, gathered today for their annual meeting in San Francisco to begin four days of intensive research presentations. Presentations each year at the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine's (SMFM) annual meeting, The Pregnancy Meeting ™, represent major findings in reducing high-risk pregnancies and complications.
Catherine Y. Spong, M.D., chief, pregnancy and perinatology branch, ...
SLU research implicates natural toxin as triggering Parkinson's disease
2011-02-14
ST. LOUIS – In new research from Saint Louis University, investigators have found evidence that a toxin produced by the brain is responsible for the series of cellular events that lead to Parkinson's disease. The study, published in PLoS One, found that the brain toxin DOPAL plays a key role in killing the dopamine neurons which trigger the illness.
In earlier research, Saint Louis University investigators found that DOPAL seemed to be responsible for killing healthy dopamine cells, which in turn causes Parkinson disease to develop. Now, research in an animal model ...
LED products billed as eco-friendly contain toxic metals, study finds
2011-02-14
Irvine, Calif., Feb. 10, 2011 – Those light-emitting diodes marketed as safe, environmentally preferable alternatives to traditional lightbulbs actually contain lead, arsenic and a dozen other potentially hazardous substances, according to newly published research.
"LEDs are touted as the next generation of lighting. But as we try to find better products that do not deplete energy resources or contribute to global warming, we have to be vigilant about the toxicity hazards of those marketed as replacements," said Oladele Ogunseitan, chair of UC Irvine's Department of Population ...
When nature calls
2011-02-14
COLLEGE STATION, Feb. 9, 2011 — When you've got to go, you've got to go — upstream, that is, if you are a male swordtail fish seeking a mate, according to research from Texas A&M University.
A recent study led by Texas A&M biologists Dr. Gil Rosenthal and Dr. Heidi Fisher in collaboration with scientists at Centro de Investigaciones Cientificas de las Huastecas in Hidalgo, Mexico, and Boston University has determined that the fish use chemical cues in their urine to elicit sexual responses from their downstream female counterparts.
In a study funded by the National ...
New model reveals pesticide-free method that takes a bite out of mosquito-borne disease
2011-02-14
Scientists have modeled a system that may be used to control mosquitoes and the diseases they transmit, without the use of pesticides. In the proposed system, mosquitoes are engineered to carry two genes. The first gene causes males to transmit a toxin to females through their semen. The second gene, when expressed in females, makes them immune to this toxin. This research, published in the February 2011 issue of Genetics (http://www.genetics.org), describes a system that can be created using currently available molecular tools and could confine the spread of mosquitoes ...
UCSB chemists make discovery that may lead to drug treatment possibilities for Alzheimer's
2011-02-14
(Santa Barbara, Calif.) –– UC Santa Barbara scientists have made a discovery that has the potential for use in the early diagnosis and eventual treatment of plaque-related diseases such as Alzheimer's disease and Type 2 diabetes. Their work is published in a recent issue of Nature Chemistry.
The amyloid diseases are characterized by plaque that aggregates into toxic agents that interact with cellular machinery, explained Michael T. Bowers, lead author and professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry. Other amyloid diseases include Parkinson's disease, Huntington's ...
Pulmonary fibrosis inhibited by pentraxin-2/SAP in research study
2011-02-14
MALVERN, PA – February 10, 2011 – Promedior, Inc., a clinical stage biotechnology company developing novel therapies to treat fibrotic and inflammatory diseases, announced today the publication of collaborative research in the International Journal of Biochemistry and Cell Biology entitled, "TGF-beta driven lung fibrosis is macrophage dependent and blocked by Serum amyloid P." The research showed that human Pentraxin-2 (PTX-2), also called human Serum amyloid P (SAP), potently inhibits all undesirable pro-fibrotic pathologies driven by TGFβ1 and represents a novel ...
Chinks in the brain circuitry make some more vulnerable to anxiety
2011-02-14
Why do some people fret over the most trivial matters while others remain calm in the face of calamity? Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, have identified two different chinks in our brain circuitry that explain why some of us are more prone to anxiety.
Their findings, published today (Thursday, Feb. 10) in the journal Neuron may pave the way for more targeted treatment of chronic fear and anxiety disorders. Such conditions affect at least 25 million Americans and include panic attacks, social phobias, obsessive-compulsive behavior and post-traumatic ...
Tumor microvesicles reveal detailed genetic information
2011-02-14
The Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) research team that first discovered tumor-associated RNA in tiny membrane-enclosed sacs released into the bloodstream by cancer cells has now found that these microvesicles also contain segments of tumor DNA, including retrotransposons – also called "jumping genes" – that copy and insert themselves into other areas of the genome. The investigators' report, which has been published in Nature Communications, is the first to show that microvesicles are involved in transferring retrotransposons between cells.
"Retrotransposons' ...
UTHealth, Athersys preclinical research on stem cell therapy for stroke presented at AHA conference
2011-02-14
HOUSTON and LOS ANGELES – February 10th, 2011 – Medical researchers from The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth) presented new research results at the American Heart Association International Stroke Conference that demonstrated how MultiStem®, a novel stem cell therapy being developed by Athersys, Inc. provided multiple benefits when administered in preclinical models of ischemic stroke. The study, conducted by leading researchers from the Department of Neurology at the UTHealth Medical School working in collaboration with scientists at Athersys, ...