Cancer drug Bortezomib effective in reversing transplant rejection

Cincinnati, United States, December 28: A new study has revealed that bortezomib, a drug used in the treatment of cancerdefine, can also stop the body from discarding a transplanted organ. The study has been conducted by the University of Cincinnati (U-C) in the U.S.

Traditionally bortezomib has been used to cure multiple myeloma, which affects the plasmadefine of white blood cells. The present research has divulged that Bortezomib aims B-lymphocytes, the WBCs that manufacture antibodies, and thwarts the immune systemdefine's antibodies from attacking transplanted organs.

Lead author of the study and the chief of transplant surgery at the University of Cincinnati, Dr Steve Woodle, said, "We found a body of literature demonstrating that bortezomib works well in suppressing transplant rejection in the laboratory. Moreover, it worked well in models of auto-immune disease."

He opined that plasma cells and the antibodies produced by them played a far bigger role in rejection than was previously thought. He further added that little progress was made in the development of therapies that aimed to target these cells.

The study was conducted on six patients whose immune systems had rejected the transplanted kidneys and were not responding to the conventional anti-rejection cures.

All the six patients responded well to bortezomib. Not only did the organ function improve when bortezomib was administered, the recurring occurrence of rejection was also seen missing for a good five months after the treatment.

Steve Woodle added, "This has significant implications for transplantation and auto immune disease." His team is currently working on four more clinical trials to enhance learnings from the first round of findings.

The icing on the cake is that the side effects of bortezomib were both predictable and controllable. Moreover the toxicity levels were handy and lesser than other allied anti-cancerdefine agents.

A contented Jason Everly, an oncology pharmacist at the University of Cincinnati and co-author of the study, said, "We are pleased to see its toxicities are similar in transplant recipients suffering from treatment-resistant mixed organ rejection. We hope it will be a viable therapeutic treatment option in this patient group."

The study features in the latest edition of the journal Transplantation.