This approach also presupposes that low rates of bleeding prevent arthropathy in primary prophylaxis and delay the progression of arthropathy in secondary prophylaxis. Long-term follow up studies are required to confirm the efficacy of any prophylactic regimen or strategy with both clinical and radiological monitoring. These studies will
require considerable resources to conduct. Many pharmaceutical companies are developing FVIII and IX concentrates with prolonged half-lives and, if successful, this is likely to lead to improved patient care. The possible implications that these products have for patients on prophylaxis need to be considered. If prevention of bleeds is dependent on time with low factor levels, then there is a risk that this relationship will be exaggerated by prolonged selleck half-life products as, although it will take longer for the level to fall below 1 IU dL−1, the length of time spent at low
levels will be substantially increased and these low levels would occur during both day and night as opposed to www.selleckchem.com/ferroptosis.html night alone. For example (Fig. 3), if a hypothetical new FVIII analogue has a median half-life of 36 h with a range of 24–48 h and an IVR of 2 IU dL−1 per IU kg−1, then following an infusion of 30 IU kg−1, the time taken to reach 1 IU dL−1 will vary between 6 and 11.8 days. This example assumes a modest twofold variation in half-life; if anything, the variation is likely to be greater and the difference in time to reach 1 IU dL−1 greater. It is not known whether this would have an impact on the efficacy of prophylaxis. This analysis makes the assumption that the shape of the FVIII curve is the same for long-acting FVIII as it is for
the native molecule, and whether this is the case will need to be investigated when these products come to clinical trial. Reducing the frequency of peaks with prolonged half-life products may affect the efficacy of prophylaxis and this may differ between patients. For example, a relatively sedentary patient on stable prophylaxis with few breakthrough bleeds may do well, but a patient with target joints starting secondary prophylaxis or a highly active adolescent might benefit from recurrent peaks as well as sustained trough levels. Knowledge of individual patient check details FVIII half-life with these products would appear to be even more important than with conventional products when designing prophylactic regimens. This needs to be taken into account when clinical trials with these products are devised and it is unlikely that once weekly infusions will be suitable for all patients. The evaluation of FVIII/IX PK can be useful when assessing whether a patient has achieved full tolerance at the end of Immune Tolerance Induction (ITI). Some have defined tolerance to FVIII inhibitors as a negative Bethesda assay, a recovery of more than 66% of expected and a half-life greater than 6 h (http://www.itistudy.com/).