Northwestern Study on Rituximab Serves Up Scary Reminders

A recent study linking rituximab to a fatal brain virus in the journal Blood is a reminder that no matter the excitement caused by new drugs or therapies, we need to practice a certain degree of due diligence before undergoing them ourselves or allowing loved ones to do so.

The study, out of Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine and led by Dr. Charles Bennett and his innovative RADAR Project (Research on Adverse Drug Events and Reports), linked rituximab to progressive multifocal leukoencephalitis (PML), a fatal brain disease that is often misdiagnosed as early-stage Alzheimer's.

Just a few days ago I wrote about the results of a review by the prestigious Cochran Library, which strongly advocated rituximab to patients with follicular lymphoma.

The Cochran review only confirmed for many what they already knew—that for many lymphoma patients, rituximab has been nothing short of a game-changer.

The RADAR project's findings, meanwhile, only added weight to what some have feared to be true since 2006—that for some people, rituximab might be life-threatening.

However, it's too early to say how rituximab and PML might be linked, or which potential patients might be at risk.

Lymphoma patients aren't the only ones who have benefitted from rituximab; people with rheumatoid arthritis as well as (off-label) those with multiple sclerosis, lupus and anemia have too. What's frightening is that rituximab is now the third monoclonal antibody to be linked with PML; the first was efalizumab (Raptiva), the next was natalizumab (Tysabri) . Both drugs were removed from the US market; Tysabri eventually returned, with new warnings.

As Dr. Bennett told Science Daily (my primary source for this blog entry), "People have been lulled into a false sense of security that this drug is harmless and that it only does good things. No drug is perfect."

Hallelujah. And thank goodness for the likes of the RADAR project (more on them later).

Bennett further recommended that all patients taking rituximab should be closely monitored for neurological symptoms that might indicate PML, including 'forgetfulness, disorientation or mood changes'.

Sources:
--Science Daily's report on rituximab and PML
--UPI piece announcing Raptiva's removal from the US market
--Biogen letter announcing changes to Tysabri's safety and confirming its return to the US market.
--MedScape piece about projects like RADAR that try to bring adverse drug events (ADE) to publication sooner than they would otherwise be.

More Articles

More Articles

Amazon.com is pleased to have the Lymphoma Information Network in the family of Amazon.com associates. We've agreed to ship items...

The question ought to be what are myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS), since this is a group of similar blood and bone marrow diseases that...

Merkel Cell Carcinoma (MCC) is a very rare and aggressive skin cancer that usually develops when a person is in his or her 70s. It is...

Radiation Therapy Topics

...

At some point, the Seattle biotech company Cell Therapeutics Inc (CTI) should earn an entry in the Guinness Book of World Records for utter and...

Site Beginnings

This site was started as Lymphoma Resource Page(s) in 1994. The site was designed to collect lymphoma...

Three papers appearing in the journal Blood and pointing towards a regulator-suppressor pill could offer hope to blood cancer...

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted a third so-called Breakthrough Therapy Designation for the investigational oral...

The US Food and Drug Administration today has approved an expanded use of Imbruvica (ibrutinib) in patients with...

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has announced that it has granted "Breakthrough Therapy Designation" for the investigational agent...

According to a new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a team from the University of California, San...

Pharmacyclics has announced that the company has submitted a New Drug Application (NDA) to the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for...

New research suggests that frontline radioimmunotherapy...

Gilead Sciences has announced results of the company's Phase II study of its investigational compound idelalisib, an oral inhibitor of...

Sitemap