Inpharma 1648 - 26 Jul 2008

■ Tacrolimus is an effective treatment for patientswith corticosteroid-dependent minimal changenephrotic syndrome, report researchers based inChina. In this open-label study, 26 such patientsreceived tacrolimus 0.05 mg/kg/day (n = 12), or IVcyclophosphamide 750 mg/m2 once every 4 weeks, for24 weeks. All patients also received oral prednisone0.5 mg/kg/day until remission; this dose wasmaintained until 2 weeks after remission and was thentapered. Complete remission (CR) was achieved in90.9% and 76.9% of tacrolimus and cyclophosphamiderecipients, respectively. Tacrolimus was associatedwith a significantly shorter mean time to CR thancyclophosphamide. There was no significant between-group difference with regard to the proportions ofpatients who successfully withdrew fromcorticosteroid therapy for > 2 weeks.Li X, et al. Tacrolimus as a steroid-sparing agent for adults with steroid-dependent minimal change nephrotic syndrome. Nephrology DialysisTransplantation 23: 1919-1925, No. 6, Jun 2008 801119508

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Inpharma 26 Jul 2008 No. 16481173-8324/10/1648-0001/$14.95 Adis © 2010 Springer International Publishing AG. All rights reserved