WEDNESDAY, Sept. 3 (HealthDay News) -- An experimental gout drug
called pegloticase lowered levels of uric acid in the blood to
target levels within a few hours in most patients.
That's the conclusion of a study by researchers at Duke
University Medical Center and Savient Pharmaceuticals, the company
that's developing the drug.
The phase II clinical trial included 41 patients randomly
selected to receive either four or eight milligrams of pegloticase
every two weeks, or eight or 12 milligrams every four weeks, for a
12- or 14-week period. The treatment is an infusion that takes
about two hours.
Pegloticase normalized uric acid levels within six hours for
participants in all dosage groups, and those levels were sustained
throughout the treatment period in the two groups at the higher
dosage levels. The most effective dose was found to be eight
milligrams every two weeks, the study found.
During treatment, 88 percent of the patients experienced gout
flares and some also experienced mild to moderate side effects,
including reactions to the infusion and joint pain.
"The generally accepted goal of therapy is to reduce serum urate concentrations to less than 6 milligrams per deciliter, and we found that pegloticase can do that very, very quickly," study lead author Dr. John Sundy, a rheumatologist at Duke, said in a university news release.
"We were delighted to see this response, because all of the patients in our trial had already tried all the existing treatments for gout, and nothing was helping them," said Sundy, who added that more studies need to be conducted to confirm and expand the findings.
The findings were published online and were to be in the
September issue of the journal
Arthritis & Rheumatism. Results of a phase III study of pegloticase were expected to be presented in October at the annual meeting of the American College of Rheumatology, in San Francisco.
More information
The American Academy of Family Physicians has more about
gout.
