Azathioprine (AZA), sold under the brand name Imuran, among others, is an immunosuppressive medication. It is used in rheumatoid arthritis, granulomatosis with polyangiitis, Crohns disease, ulcerative colitis, and systemic lupus erythematosus, and in kidney transplants to prevent rejection. It is listed by the International Agency for Research on Cancer as a group 1 carcinogen (carcinogenic to humans). It is taken by mouth or injected into a vein.Common side effects include bone-marrow suppression and vomiting. Bone-marrow suppression is especially common in people with a genetic deficiency of the enzyme thiopurine S-methyltransferase. Other serious risk factors include an increased risk of certain cancers. Use during pregnancy may result in harm to the baby. Azathioprine is in the purine analogue and antimetabolite family of medications. It works via 6-thioguanine to disrupt the making of RNA and DNA by cells.Azathioprine was first made in 1957. It is on the World Health Organizations List of Essential Medicines. In 2017, it was the 335th-most commonly prescribed medication in the United States, with more than 800,000 prescriptions. Medical uses
Azathioprine is used alone or in combination with other immunosuppressive therapy to prevent rejection following organ transplantation, and to treat an array of autoimmune diseases, including rheumatoid arthritis, pemphigus, systemic lupus erythematosus, Behçets disease, and other forms of vasculitis, autoimmune hepatitis, atopic dermatitis, myasthenia gravis, neuromyelitis optica (Devics disease), restrictive lung disease, and others.
Such failure is called biochemical failure and is defined as a PSA reading of 2.0 ng/mL above nadir (the lowest reading taken post primary treatment).As of August 2014, a clinical trial administering sipuleucel-T in conjunction with ipilimumab (Yervoy) was tracking subjects but no longer enrolling new subjects; the trial evaluates the clinical safety and anti-cancer effects (quantified in PSA, radiographic and T cell response) of the combination therapy in patients with advanced prostate cancer. References
This article incorporates public domain material from Dictionary of Cancer Terms. U.S. National Cancer Institute. Further reading
Huber ML, Haynes L, Parker C, Iversen P (February 2012). "Interdisciplinary critique of sipuleucel-T as immunotherapy in castration-resistant prostate cancer". Journal of the National Cancer Institute. 104 (4): 273–9. doi:10.1093/jnci/djr514. PMC 3283534. PMID 22232132. "Sipuleucel-T: APC 8015, APC-8015, prostate cancer vaccine--Dendreon". Drugs in R&D. 7 (3): 197–201. 2006. doi:10.2165/00126839-200607030-00006. PMID 16752945. External links
"Sipuleucel-T". Drug Information Portal. U.S. National Library of Medicine.