Treatment
If no specific therapy is initiated, in 94% of patients the disease is fatal within 10–20 years following diagnosis.
- Currently, benzimidazoles (such as albendazole) are used to treat AE: only halt their proliferation and do not actually kill the parasites, side effects such as liver damage
- 2-ME2, a natural metabolite of estradiol, is tested with some results in vitro: decreased transcription of 14-3-3-pro-tumorogenic zeta-isoform, causes damage to germinal layer but does not kill parasite in vivo
- Treatment with a combination of albendazole/2-ME2 showed best results in reducing parasite burden
- Despite the improvements in the chemotherapy of echinococcosis with benzimidazole derivatives, complete elimination of the parasitic mass cannot be achieved in most of the infected patients, although there have been studies that indicate that long-term treatment with mebendazole may cause the death of the parasite.
Read more about this topic: Echinococcus Multilocularis
Famous quotes containing the word treatment:
“Any important disease whose causality is murky, and for which treatment is ineffectual, tends to be awash in significance.”
—Susan Sontag (b. 1933)
“I will use treatment to help the sick according to my ability and judgment, but never with a view to injury and wrongdoing. Neither will I administer a poison to anybody when asked to do so, nor will I suggest such a course. Similarly, I will not give to a woman a pessary to cause abortion. I will keep pure and holy both my life and my art.”
—Hippocrates (c. 460–c. 370 B.C.)
“I feel that any form of so called psychotherapy is strongly contraindicated for addicts.... The question “Why did you start using narcotics in the first place?” should never be asked. It is quite as irrelevant to treatment as it would be to ask a malarial patient why he went to a malarial area.”
—William Burroughs (b. 1914)