A drug previously used to treat psoriasis has shown positive results in a phase II trial assessing its effectiveness at treating type 1 diabetes, according to a study published in The Lancet Diabetes and Endocrinology.
The drug, alefacept, is an immune-suppressing drug that has been used to treat psoriasis, a common skin condition, for around a decade.
According to the team of US researchers, there have been trials in the 1980s and 1990s that explored the use of immune-suppressing drugs to treat type 1 diabetes. But they say the long-term use of immunosuppressant therapy at that time outweighed the benefits.
However, more recent immune-suppressing drugs have been developed to target specific cells that trigger autoimmune disorders, while avoiding the immune cells needed for normal immune functioning.
Alefacept, marketed as amevive but withdrawn by its manufacturer in 2011, works by attacking specific T cells (a type of white blood cell). These include Tem (effector memory) cells, and on a lower scale, Tcm (central memory) cells, which the researchers say are "involved in the body's mistaken attack against itself."
Because type 1 diabetes involves the process of Tem Cells and Tcm cells attacking insulin-producing cells in the pancreas, the researchers wanted to see what effect alefacept had on patients who had been newly diagnosed with the condition.
The researchers, led by Professor Mark Rigby of Indiana University and the Riley Hospital for Children in Indianapolis, recruited 49 patients from 14 different US institutions.
Alefacept injections were given to 33 of the participants weekly for a period of 12 weeks, followed by a break of 12 weeks, before a further weekly dose of the drug for another 12-week period. The other 16 participants were given a placebo and followed the same schedule.
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