Pneumonia Cure to Go to More AIDS Patients
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WASHINGTON — The Food and Drug Administration said Monday that more patients will be given the experimental drug trimetrexate, which has effectively treated the type of pneumonia that causes most AIDS deaths.
The drug, made by Warner-Lambert Co., is being tested on several hundred AIDS patients who have pneumocystis carinii pneumonia, the most common cause of death in AIDS cases.
In tests of 49 AIDS sufferers conducted at the National Institutes of Health and George Washington University Medical Center, the anti-cancer drug cured the pneumonia in at least two-thirds of the cases, researchers reported last year in the New England Journal of Medicine.
Certain Patients Targeted
The FDA said a new study using trimetrexate will be open primarily to patients who have failed to respond to treatment with the only approved drugs for the form of pneumonia--trimethoprim/sulfamethozole and injectable pentamidine--or to those who suffer serious side effects from the drugs.
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