What's In It For You With Liposomal Clodronate Therapy

By Teri Farley


Everyday a new drug is introduced into the market with manufacturers guaranteeing positive results. This right here is all too uncommon particularly in medicine where laboratory experiments and studies are conducted almost everyday. A new and remarkable form of therapy was discovered for the treatment of diseases caused by an over reactive or abnormal immune system, treatment was given using liposomal clodronate.

The results concerning clodronate liposome therapy has been quite fascinating. It showed a strong performance in suppressing the immune system which gave a new hope for rejected transplant patients as well as those that have been suffering on the worst stage of their autoimmune disease. Additionally, such therapy also showed positive results in conjunction with cancer drugs.

The immune system has an important role in a man's health. Under normal circumstances, the immune system defends the body from foreign cells which may cause infection such as common cough and colds. In addition to that, it may also send off several defensive mechanisms in the body perhaps to prevent additional trauma.

In other words, under normal circumstances the immune system is helpful. However, for some reason the immune system may not be functioning how it's supposed to be. In fact, it may cause diseases in the body thus the term, autoimmune disease meaning, "self'' made disease. Your own immune system is fighting with your own healthy cells and without medical intervention disease will progress rather quickly.

Clodronic acid liposome therapy, targets the macrophages to efficiently halt the attack of healthy cells. Suppressing your macrophages will slow down inflammation thus decreasing the pace of disease progression. Some autoimmune diseases have life threatening effect when not intervened properly, for an instance in myasthenia gravis.

Clodronic acid is administered through the trachea, directly into the lungs and absorbed by the blood stream. Using liposomes as vehicle, the liposome will be ingested by the macrophages through endocytosis. Certain chemicals inside the cells will disrupt the layer of the liposome releasing the clodronate. There will be an accumulation of clodronic acid inside the macrophage and after exceeding threshold, will cause the macrophage to die through apoptosis.

To be able to reduce or halt these immune reactions, it will be necessary to suppress the immune system. Although this mode of treatment is not new, not all method of therapy has proved to be quite a success. Transplant rejections are still prominent and disease progression on patients with autoimmune disease is still unpreventable.

With the discovery of clodronic acid therapy, these possibilities may be the least of your concerns. Through the use of liposomes as the drug vehicle the main drug, clodronic acid will be delivered inside the macrophages and after exceeding its threshold, dies by apoptosis. Liposomes are easily engulfed by macrophages which makes it a great choice as a drug vehicle. As the drug is delivered directly into the phagocytic cells, there's a greater chance of suppressing the immune system.

Liposomal clodronate was also discovered to have therapeutic effects in conjunction with anti tumor drugs used in Cancer. Clodronic acid is said to improve the drug absorption of antineoplastic drugs as well as demonstrated the possibility of slowing down cancer growth however, this mode of action is yet to be proved. The combination of decreasing blood vessel density and tumor size shows great promise.




About the Author:



No comments:

Post a Comment