Treatment
Until the 2000s, treatment of Fabry disease targeted the symptomatic effects.
In 2001, two Enzyme Replacement Therapies (ERTs) were released which attempt to replace the deficient enzyme by means of infusion. The drugs are expensive, with an annual cost of approximately $200,000 US per patient, and that constitutes a barrier to successful treatment for many patients around the world. Enzyme replacement therapy is not a cure, but can allow improved metabolism and partially prevent disease progression, as well as potentially reversing some symptoms.
Pain associated with Fabry disease can be partially alleviated by ERT, but pain management regimens may also include analgesics, anticonvulsants, and non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs.
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Famous quotes containing the word treatment:
“Narcissist: psychoanalytic term for the person who loves himself more than his analyst; considered to be the manifestation of a dire mental disease whose successful treatment depends on the patient learning to love the analyst more and himself less.”
—Thomas Szasz (b. 1920)
“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)