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:
“In those days, the blag slag, the waste of the coal pits, had only begun to cover the side of our hill. Not enough to mar the countryside nor blacken the beauty of our village. For the colliery had only begun to poke its skinny black fingers between the green.”
—Philip Dunne (1908–1992)
“Each of us, even the lowliest and most insignificant among us, was uprooted from his innermost existence by the almost constant volcanic upheavals visited upon our European soil and, as one of countless human beings, I can’t claim any special place for myself except that, as an Austrian, a Jew, writer, humanist and pacifist, I have always been precisely in those places where the effects of the thrusts were most violent.”
—Stefan Zweig (18811942)
“In common with other rural regions much of the Iowa farm lore concerns the coming of company. When the rooster crows in the doorway, or the cat licks his fur, company is on the way.”
—For the State of Iowa, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)