Inhibitor Eradication (inhibitor + eradication)

Distribution by Scientific Domains


Selected Abstracts


Mild haemophilia: a disease with many faces and many unexpected pitfalls

HAEMOPHILIA, Issue 2010
K. PEERLINCK
Summary., Despite major advances in diagnosis and treatment, the management of patients with mild haemophilia (MH) remains a major challenge. Mild haemophilia is defined by factor levels between 0.05 and 0.40 IU mL,1. The bleeding associated with mild haemophilia is most frequently episodic, occurring during surgery or following trauma. Spontaneous bleeding is rare. Diagnosis is sometimes delayed because of insensitivity of screening clotting assays or discrepancies in factor VIII activity as measured by different assays. The treatment of choice in mild haemophilia A is desmopressin, which typically induces a 2,6-fold increase of factor VIII over baseline. However, desmopressin has its limitations in this setting such as the occurrence of tachyphylaxis and failure to respond in an undetermined proportion of patients. Factors underlying poor biological response or magnitude of response to desmopressin are incompletely understood. Inhibitor development in mild haemophilia is particularly distressing. This complication arises at an older age in this patient group because of infrequent need for factor VIII replacement. Inhibitors in mild haemophilia patients often cross-react with endogenous factor VIII resulting in severe spontaneous bleeding frequently in a postoperative setting. Intensive perioperative use of factor VIII and some specific mutations induce a particularly high risk for inhibitor development, but risk factors are incompletely understood. For reasons of the older age of the patients, treatment of bleeding with bypassing agents may cause major thrombotic complications. Data on therapeutic options for inhibitor eradication in patients with mild haemophilia are particularly scarce. With increased life-expectancy for all haemophilia patients, the group of elderly patients with mild haemophilia requiring major surgery will further increase. Prevention of inhibitors, particularly in this patient group, should be a major topic of interest in both clinic and research. [source]


The North American Immune Tolerance Registry: contributions to the thirty-year experience with immune tolerance therapy

HAEMOPHILIA, Issue 1 2009
D. DIMICHELE
Summary., The North American Immune Tolerance Registry (NAITR) began in 1992 as a project of the ISTH Factor VIII/IX Subcommittee with the goal of further determining immune tolerance induction (ITI) practices in Canada and the United States. This retrospective registry study, published in 2002, was limited in its capacity to provide definitive answers to many unresolved ITI practice issues. Nonetheless, it played a role in developing guidelines for current ITI practice and in generating hypotheses that must now be examined through rigorous prospective data collection efforts. For haemophilia A, the logical next step has been the initiation of international prospective randomized studies of ITI outcome relative to factor VIII (FVIII) dose and purity for subjects with high titre inhibitors. Both trials will additionally provide platforms for translational study of the immunology of tolerance, a prelude to the next generation of safe and effective tolerizing strategies. For the less common problem of FIX inhibitor eradication, prospective randomized studies will not be a feasible way to confirm the NAITR observations. Coordinated international efforts will still be required to prospectively collect data on ITI outcome to document new potentially effective therapeutic strategies for inhibitor eradication. These registries will hopefully also serve to identify potential subjects for scientific studies of immunology of haemophilia B-related allergic phenomena, a devastating complication of FIX antibody development. [source]


Treatment of acquired hemophilia A

JOURNAL OF THROMBOSIS AND HAEMOSTASIS, Issue 5 2007
P. W. COLLINS
Summary., Acquired hemophilia A (AH) is an autoimmune disease that leads to potentially severe bleeding. Management relies on rapid and accurate diagnosis, control of bleeding episodes and eradication of the inhibitor by immunosuppression. There is extensive literature about the disease but only few controlled data are available. This paper reviews the current literature on treatment strategies for hemostatic therapy and inhibitor eradication. Potential future developments are discussed. [source]