#114- IN THE NEWS: Research Updates

BBC reports that researchers have found a protein made by white blood cells that can slow down the immune response:

BBC NEWS Health Immune system 'brakes' found

The protein is called carabin.
Here is an easy to read article about how carabin works when battling a cold:

LiveScience.com - Cold Case: How Sniffles are Stifled

Reports are saying that carabin works like immune suppressing medications such as cyclosporin.

Currently this research is focused on helping organ transplant recipients.

But, there may be potential benefits for people with autoimmune disease.

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Intravenous Immune Globulin (IVIG) treatment may see some advances due to recent research reported in Science Daily:

ScienceDaily: Discovery May Lead To Novel Treatments For Autoimmune And Chronic Inflammatory Diseases

IVIG is given to patients as an infusion. Currently, patients must spend three to four hours with the IV for three days in a row. Patients usually must go to a hospital setting for this treatment.

Researchers are looking into making this treatment available via an injection done at the doctor's office.

Intravenous Immune Globulin treatment is not widely used at this time in lupus treatment. It is very expensive. IVIG is a plasma (blood) product that is made by paid donations from about 20,000 donors. The antibodies from each donor are taken out and mixed together.

That adds up to about $3,000 per infusion.

Ideally, researchers need to find a method to create this treatment synthetically so that more people may benefit.

In the meantime, there is anecdotal (case by case reports) of using this treatment for severe cases of systemic lupus.

Loretta Kelly, B.S.Ed., M.S.W.
2007, Please do not copy without author's permission


NOTE: Please review the comments section. Gail reports that you can have an in home nurse (recommended via your physician) in order to receive IVIG treatment at home.





RESOURCES

Systemic Lupus Erythematosus - New Treatments, January 2, 2007

IVIg Benifits

THANK YOU:

Karyl

Karyl's Glimpses of Eternity-- Lupus and Life

Gail

Gail's MySpace Blog