Monthly immunosuppressants through IV

[jdat]

I read about some testing that was being done on this a couple months ago.
You basically get a montly iv injection of your  immunosuppressant drugs and you don't have to worry about these meds till the next injection.

Has anyone read this or have any references?
 I completely forgot about the details and would love to see who/what/where and when and any advancements on the matter.

[Rerun]

Bump~

[mallory]

I'm not sure this is applicable to kidney transplants, but I'm on immunosuppressants for vasculitis.  I've been on oral Cytoxan (Cyclophosphamide) and Prednisone.  I tried Cellcept, but it didn't work.  For the last two months, I've been on IV Cytoxan once a month and I still take 20 mg. of Prenisone a day (I'm hoping to reduce that, I hate Prednisone!).  It seems to be working very well for the vasculitis.  I'm not as sick as I was taking the oral Cytoxan, and they said that it's less toxic to your system than taking the drugs on a daily basis.  I hope it would work the same way for a transplant.

[Fighter]

I think jdat was referring to belatacept, an investigational drug developed by Bristol-Myers Squibb. They are already in phase III after a successful phase II. It is quite interesting and could provide a viable alternative to conventional immunosuppressive drugs in the future if the results of phase II are confirmed. I mentioned it to my nephrologist and he said he was a bit skeptical because the clinical trials were financed by the drug company and might have been biased in their favor. But even he admitted that the results so far were very encouraging.

More info at: http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/505462

[okarol]

I wonder if this is the drug? http://ihatedialysis.com/forum/index.php?topic=6008.msg88447#msg88447