Side Effects and Concerns
There have been concerns about the side effects of monoclonal antibodies, and specifically of infliximab, but these are rare. Early side effects include the risk of allergic reactions (including anaphylaxis which may be life-threatening), and reactions to the infusion. These are often treated with medications given before treatment. Infliximab also carries a risk of worsening infection, and can cause reactivation of old infections, like tuberculosis. Over time, there is the risk of serum sickness, which is a delayed hypersensitivity response to the medication. Later complications may include multiple sclerosis and lymphoma. Finally, the medication is quite expensive, with treatment costs ranging from US$3000 to $8000 per infusion.
Loss of response to infliximab over time is a concern, due to the development of antibodies to infliximab (termed human anti-chimeric antibodies, or HACA). This can be reduced by concurrent treatment with other immunosuppressant medications (including azathioprine and methotrexate), by maintaining a regular infusion schedule, and by giving patients a pre-treatment dose of steroid medication.
Read more about this topic: Biological Therapy For Inflammatory Bowel Disease
Famous quotes containing the words side, effects and/or concerns:
“I can exchange opinion with any neighbouring mind,
I have as healthy flesh and blood as any rhymer’s had,
But O! my Heart could bear no more when the upland caught the wind;
I ran, I ran, from my love’s side because my Heart went mad.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“Whereas Freud was for the most part concerned with the morbid effects of unconscious repression, Jung was more interested in the manifestations of unconscious expression, first in the dream and eventually in all the more orderly products of religion and art and morals.”
—Lewis Mumford (1895–1990)
“Science asks no questions about the ontological pedigree or a priori character of a theory, but is content to judge it by its performance; and it is thus that a knowledge of nature, having all the certainty which the senses are competent to inspire, has been attained—a knowledge which maintains a strict neutrality toward all philosophical systems and concerns itself not with the genesis or a priori grounds of ideas.”
—Chauncey Wright (1830–1875)