The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : Study to check efficacy of nephritic syndrome treatment

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Jan 02, 2007
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Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

Study to check efficacy of nephritic syndrome treatment

Staff Reporter

`The conventional line of treatment for this condition is through steroids called cyclophosphamide'

Bangalore: Atrimed Pharmaceuticals, in association with the Department of Paediatric Nephrology at St. John's Medical College Hospital, will conduct a study to check and establish the efficacy of an Ayurvedic formulation in the treatment of nephrotic syndrome in children.

Speaking to presspersons here on Friday, Anil Vasudevan, Senior Research Associate in Paediatric Nephrology at the Children's Kidney Care Centre of the hospital, said that nephrotic syndrome is a condition wherein blood filtering units of the kidney are damaged and the child is unable to retain protein in the body, which is passed out in the urine.

This makes the child prone to infections.

Steroids

"The conventional line of treatment for this condition is through steroids called cyclophosphamide.

"The treatment is lifelong and steroids are known to have side-effects such as growth retardation and there are chances that they may develop juvenile diabetes, cataract and kidney failure," Dr. Vasudevan said.

Cost-effective

Clinical trials sought to have an alternative line of treatment for children with nephrotic syndrome, which would be cost-effective, he said.

Kishore Phadke, Professor of Paediatric Nephrology at St. John's will be the principal investigator in the study.

Hrishikesh Damle, Managing Director of Atrimed, said that 150 children between the age of one and 18 who came to the paediatric nephrology outpatient department seeking treatment for nephrotic syndrome were being chosen for the study.

They would be administered treatment over a period of two years and at the end of the period, they would be followed up for another year to see how well they had responded to the treatment, he said.

Free of cost

"All the treatment, including consultation, medicines and investigations will be provided free of cost. Children who have not responded well to the conventional method of treatment will be chosen," Mr. Damle said.

A pilot study with 30 children suffering from the same condition was done in 1999 by Atrimed and the research findings were published in the Journal of Paediatric Nephrology, Germany.

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