Supplement-Arthritis drug OK'd for rare disease
Supplement-Arthritis drug OK'd for rare disease
The Food and Drug Administration recently approved celecoxib capsules as an oral adjunct to usual care for patients with familial adenomatous polyposis (FAP), a rare and devastating hereditary disease that, left untreated, almost always leads to colorectal cancer.
A six-month, 83-patient, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical trial demonstrated that an oral dose of celecoxib 400 mg twice daily reduced the number of adenomatous colorectal polyps by 28%, compared with 5% for placebo. "This is the first real breakthrough in our ability to offer FAP patients a proven adjunctive therapy to usual care," says lead investigator Gideon Steinbach, MD, assistant professor of medicine at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston.
Celecoxib capsules are sold in the United States under the brand name Celebrex and co-promoted by Pfizer and Searle of Skokie, IL. For details, visit www.pfizer.com or www. searlehealthnet.com.
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