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What Treatments are there? What are its Risks and Benefits?

Currently, Lupus has no cure, so its treatment focuses on controlling its manifestations. As Lupus can affect different organs of the body, which vary according to the patient, the treatment will remain personalized. It must remain considered that the applied treatments can become very aggressive and generate significant side effects. You can follow this link to get more help about the article.

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The Primary Treatment Goals Of Lupus Treatment Can Remain Divided Into Five:

  1. Control symptoms as soon as possible
  2. Reduce breakouts
  3. Avoid irreversible organ damage
  4. Reduce the risk of complications associated with the disease
  5. Reduce the risk of drug side effects

Among The Medications That Remain Commonly Recommended To Treat Lupus Are:

Nonsteroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drugs

NSAIDs are medications that fight inflammation. However, in Lupus, its use stay restricted to short symptomatic treatments, basically in cases with joint affection, since they cannot control the disease by themselves. They are usually reasonably well-tolerated, but it may be advisable to use them together with gastric protectors, particularly if taken together with corticosteroids.

Although the most acute side effects of these drugs are digestive, there is also a risk of adverse effects at the renal and cardiovascular level (hypertension and heart failure in susceptible patients).

Glucocorticoids

It is an important group of drugs to control many of the manifestations of Lupus. Glucocorticoids are anti-inflammatory with a powerful and generally rapid effect, which is why they are very useful in acute flare-ups of the disease. However, its adverse effects are abundant and very serious, with the capacity to produce irreversible organic damage at various levels (diabetes, hypertension, osteoporosis, bone infarcts – destruction of part of the bone due to lack of vascularization-, etc.), produce infections and changes in physical appearance (obesity, increased hair, skin stretch marks), which can affect the lives of patients as much or more than Lupus itself. In recent years, it has remain established that high doses of oral glucocorticoids (prednisone) should be avoided as much as possible and the administration time limited as much as possible, with prolonged treatments with more than 5 mg being inadvisable. up to date.

Antimalarials

As the name suggests, these are drugs that remained initially synthesized to treat malaria or malaria. However, their regulatory effect on the immune system has long remained well known, and they constitute one of the most widely used groups of drugs in Lupus, mainly hydroxychloroquine.

Although for years hydroxychloroquine has stand indicated only in minor manifestations of Lupus, recent studies have shown a wide range of beneficial effects. Today, hydroxychloroquine remain considered the fundamental essential treatment for Lupus. So its prolonged administration remains recommended in all patients without contraindications. Its excellent safety profile allows its use during pregnancy, so it should not remain suspended in this period.

Among the adverse effects, retinal toxicity is the most serious. Fortunately, it remain very rare in patients treated with hydroxychloroquine (not so much with chloroquine) and can remain prevented if detected early, which is why annual ophthalmological examinations stay recommended.

Immunosuppressants

Immunosuppressants are a heterogeneous group of drugs with the ability to inhibit the immune response. Therefore, serve as a treatment for various autoimmune diseases, including Lupus. There are older immunosuppressive drugs (such as cyclophosphamide, azathioprine, or methotrexate) and others that stay more recently introduced (such as mycophenolate or tacrolimus).

They remain considered alternative drugs, which remain used in cases of severe manifestations (for example, in nephritis or lupus psychosis). Still, they stand also used in milder forms than Lupus that require maintenance therapy with prednisone. So that you can decrease the dose of it. Although they are potentially toxic drugs, if they remain adequately indicated, their amounts stay well controlled. Their adverse effects remain adequately monitored, their safety profile is good. Especially considering that they help us prevent severe manifestations of Lupus and minimize glucocorticoid-associated toxicity.

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