Treatment of graft-versus-host disease and leukemia with beclomethasone dipropionate and prednisone

Abstract

A method for reducing mortality associated with GVHD by treating the patent with an oral BDP regimen that involves co-administration of: 1) a high dose of prednisone (about 1-2 mg / kg / day) for about 10 days, which is then tapered rapidly over the following 7 days to a physiological replacement dose of about 0.0625 mg / kg / day for the remainder of the treatment, and 2) about 4 - 12 mg oral BDP q.i.d. for about 50 days, where the BDP is administered in both immediate release and enteric coated preparations. Another method is for treating leukemia by performing hematopoietic cell transplantation followed by said regimen. A significant reduction in patient mortality is observed 200 days after the start of these treatments.

Description

technical field [0001] Treatment of gastrointestinal graft-versus-host disease (GVHD) with orally active therapeutic agents. Background technique [0002] Hematopoietic cell transplantation includes bone marrow transplantation, peripheral blood stem cell transplantation, umbilical vein blood transplantation, or any other source of multipotent hematopoietic stem cells. It usually causes a complication known as graft-versus-host disease days or weeks after cell transplantation. [0003] The standard therapy for acute graft-versus-host disease (GVHD) is oral or intravenous corticosteroids, usually prednisone at a dose of 2 mg / kg / day (Sullivan KM.1999. Graft-versus-host disease. Hematopoietic Cell Transplantation, ed. Thomas, E.D., Forman, S.J., and Blume, K.G., 2nd: 515-36. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell Scientific. 2nd ed.). For patients who develop grade III or IV GVHD, this dose of prednisone is often required for many weeks, even when other immunosuppressive drugs are added to ...

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However, no information is given concerning methods for treating cancer by controlling the GVL response

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