Olsalazine is an anti-inflammatory medication used in the treatment of ulcerative colitis. It is sold under the brand name Dipentum.Olsalazine itself is a pro-drug of mesalazine (5-aminosalicyclic acid or 5-ASA) and is not absorbed in the small intestine. Instead it continues through to the colon where it is cleaved into two molecules of 5-ASA by azoreductases produced by colonic bacteria. Olsalazine thus exerts its anti-inflammatory effect by its colonic breakdown into 5-ASA which inhibits cyclooxygenase and lipoxygenase thereby reducing prostaglandin and leukotriene production. History
Olsalazine gained Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval in 1990. Supply
The drug is supplied by UCB Pharma. Research
In 2006 the Australian biotech company Giaconda received a European patent for a combination therapy for treating constipation-predominant irritable bowel syndrome that uses olsalazine and the anti-gout drug colchicine, for trials the following year. References
External links
"Olsalazine". Drug Information Portal. U.S. National Library of Medicine.
There is usually loss of fine motor control, particularly obvious in handwriting if the child is of school age. Speech is often affected (dysarthria), as is walking; legs will suddenly give way or flick out to one side, giving an irregular gait and the appearance of skipping or dancing. Underlying the abnormal movements is often low tone (hypotonia) which may not become obvious until treatment is started to suppress the chorea. In severe cases, the loss of tone and weakness predominate (chorea paralyticum). The severity of the condition can vary from just some instability on walking and difficulty with hand writing, to the extreme of being wholly unable to walk, talk, or eat. Movements cease during sleep. The eye muscles are not affected, curiously.It is a neuropsychiatric disorder, so besides the motor problems there is classically emotional lability (mood swings, or inappropriate mood), anxiety, attention deficit. These can precede the motor symptoms.Non-neurologic manifestations of acute rheumatic fever may be present, namely carditis (up to 70% of cases, often subclinical, so echocardiography required), arthritis, erythema marginatum, and subcutaneous nodules. Differentiating these signs from other involuntary movements such as tics and stereotypies can be difficult, and since these things are not uncommon they can potentially co-exist. Diagnosis is often delayed and attributed to another condition such as tic disorder or conversion disorder. The controversial PANDAS (pediatric autoimmune neuropsychiatric disorders associated with streptococcal infections) hypothesis has overlapping clinical features but Sydenhams chorea is one of the exclusion criteria.