What's In It For You With Liposomal Clodronate Therapy

By Teri Farley


Everyday scientists and medical doctors work together to discover possible treatments, more likely a better one, for various medical diseases. Up until now, several medical conditions remain incurable such as AIDS and Cancer. But with continuous medical study and experimentation, some experiments have shown promising results, for an instance in autoimmune diseases such as that with liposomal clodronate.

The results concerning clodronate liposome therapy has been quite fascinating. It showed a strong performance in suppressing the immune system which gave a new hope for rejected transplant patients as well as those that have been suffering on the worst stage of their autoimmune disease. Additionally, such therapy also showed positive results in conjunction with cancer drugs.

There are countless of cells that make up the immune system, macrophages however is said be the core of it. Its primary function is to activate natural immunity and regulate non-phagocytic cells. Macrophages play an important role in natural immune response and immunity, and are responsible in maintaining homeostasis by ingesting and digesting microorganism.

Inflammatory marker as the name implies is a sign that inflammation is currently going on. Famous inflammatory markers includes interleukin 6,8 and 1 as well as TNF-alfa. However, these markers are only a tiny part of the immune system. Indeed, the immune system consists of thousands of cells all of which has its own tiny role.

Macrophages can be a good thing or bad thing. For an instance, in simple virus infection the macrophages will be the one to fight with the virus thus preventing further infection. But in certain autoimmune diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis, systemic lupus erythematosus, multiple sclerosis and so on, macrophages are fighting against your healthy cells which caused such diseases.

Autoimmune diseases are medical conditions caused by the immune system itself. Macrophages, the core cell of the immune system, attack healthy cells causing inflammation such as those in multiple sclerosis, pernicious anemia, rheumatoid arthritis and so on. During transplant, macrophages may also attack the new cells coming from the graft causing the body to reject it.

To be able to reduce or halt these immune reactions, it will be necessary to suppress the immune system. Although this mode of treatment is not new, not all method of therapy has proved to be quite a success. Transplant rejections are still prominent and disease progression on patients with autoimmune disease is still unpreventable.

With the discovery of clodronic acid therapy, these possibilities may be the least of your concerns. Through the use of liposomes as the drug vehicle the main drug, clodronic acid will be delivered inside the macrophages and after exceeding its threshold, dies by apoptosis. Liposomes are easily engulfed by macrophages which makes it a great choice as a drug vehicle. As the drug is delivered directly into the phagocytic cells, there's a greater chance of suppressing the immune system.

Liposomal clodronate showed exemplary results in autoimmune diseases, transplant and cancer. It would not be much of a surprise if it becomes the next big thing in medicine. That is, if it's still not considered one until now.




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