Advances in the Treatment of INTERSTITIAL CYSTITIS
Interstitial Cystitis
Imagine needing to run to the bathroom up to 60 times a day. You might have to get up five times in the middle of dinner at a restaurant or wake up every 25 minutes in the night to use the bathroom. Patients with interstitial cystitis (IC) often need to urinate frequently and urgently, and they may have recurring pain and tenderness in the bladder and pelvic region.45 These symptoms can disrupt the lives of patients, making it impossible for 63 percent of them to work full time.46
These unpredictable symptoms may disappear without explanation or recur with an event such as a change in diet, treatment, or menstruation.47 Even when symptoms disappear, they may return after days, weeks, months, or years. Scientists have yet to find the cause of this disease that affects more women than men. It is most likely to strike around age 40, but many patients are much younger. There are 100,000 known cases in the United States.48
PHARMACEUTICAL ADVANCES
Soothing the Symptoms of Unpredictable Pelvic Pain Disorder
Pentosan polysulfate sodium was approved in 1996 and is the first and only orally administered medicine developed specifically for relief of IC symptoms. It is believed that it works by creating a buffer layer on the inside of the bladder to prevent urine from irritating the bladder wall.49 In clinical trials, the drug was shown to bring relief of bladder pain to 42 percent of patients who had been treated for up to six months, and 60 to 62 percent of those treated for 24 months.50 Patients also experienced reductions in frequency of urination.51
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In the decade after the Orphan Drug Act was passed, there were about
10 times as many drugs approved for rare diseases compared
with the decade before.52 |
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Endnotes:
45 National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, National Kidney and Urological Diseases Information Clearinghouse, Interstitial Cystitis, http://kidney.niddk.nih.gov/kudiseases/pubs/interstitialcystitis (accessed 11 May 2005).
46 Interstitial Cystitis Network, Patient Handbook: About Interstitial Cystitis (25 February 2005), http://www.ic-network.com/handbook/basics.html (accessed 14 September 2005).
47 National Kidney and Urologic Diseases Information Clearinghouse, "Interstitial Cystitis/Painful Bladder Syndrome," http://kidney.niddk.nih.gov/kudiseases/pubs/interstitialcystitis/ (accessed 20 January 2006).
48 Interstitial Cystitis Network, op. cit.
49 S. Reents et al., Clinical Pharmacology, Gold Standard Multi-media, Inc., Elmiron® (Pentosan), http://cp.gsm.com (accessed 11 May 2005).
50 Interstitial Cystitis Network, Patient Handbook: About Oral Medications (25 February 2005), http://www.ic-network.com/handbook/oral.html (accessed 14 September 2005).
51 Ibid.
52 Food and Drug Administration, Office of Orphan Products Development, http://www.fda.gov/orphan.
