New Lupus Treatment

It is very important that new lupus treatment should be discovered since lupus or systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) affects about 1 in 1000 people or about 5 million worldwide, a significant number of them at risk of major organ failure. Those with mild symptoms can be treated with current medications but those with an advanced state of lupus or life threatening lupus needs effective and new lupus treatment.

Some current treatments may even have damaging side effects while other patients experience flare-ups often, supporting the need for new lupus treatment.

One important breakthrough in new lupus treatment is the discovery of a chip used to identify patients with a severe case of lupus autoimmune disease. This may not be a new drug but the chip has the capability of improving diagnoses of a number of diseases as well as to know at a shorter amount of time what kind of drugs may be effective for a certain lupus patient.

A more rapid drug development is also achieved by allowing researchers to better confirm how proteins interact in the body through the chip. Thousands of protein interactions can be verified in a few amount of time, the result of which may be integrated with the information to diagnose lupus and even know how severe the sickness is. A routinary procedure can even be done while patient is in the physician’s office.

Last year, the Food and Drug Administration approved a new lupus treatment or drug known as Benlysta which is considered a long sought relief. Benlysta which is known generically as belimumab is made by the Human Genome Sciences and is proudly known to be the first medicine to be approved generally for patients with lupus.

Experts believe the effectivity of the drug will make it very popular globally and is expected to reap billions of dollars for its manufacturer. Even doctors welcome the new drug as a major breakthrough in lupus treatment.

Benylsta, though, has known side effects, the most common of which are nausea, diarrhea and fever. Nevertheless, this drug is less toxic and will help a lot of people from avoiding some damaging side effects such as those from steroids taken in high doses and from other powerful medicines.

The arrival of this drug can also inspire big drug companies like Pfizer and Roche to work more or discover new lupus treatment or drugs for a more reliable and quicker treatment of lupus and forge forward with more development programs for fighting the deadly autoimmune disease.