Hutchison found that fewer serious side effects occurred among the lanthanum patients, 21.4 percent, compared to those treated with calcium carbonate, 30.0 percent. The incidence of side effects that emerged during treatment was similar in both treatment groups and most were mild to moderate in severity. The most frequently reported side effects were nausea, vomiting, diarrhea and constipation, which are common among all phosphate binding therapies. The patients initially enrolled in this trial for 20 weeks, but Hutchison is continuing the study for six months to collect more long-term effectiveness and tolerability data.

During Finn's trial, side effects that occurred were comparable between the lanthanum and the standard treatment groups, 93.0 and 94.1 percent, respectively. Drug-related side effects were higher in the lanthanum group as expected, Finn explains, and might in part be attributed to this being an open-label trial and that physicians may have been more likely to attribute adverse events to a novel therapy than to established agents. The reported drug-related side effects occurred in 21.2 and 12.6 percent of the patients receiving lanthanum and conventional treatments, respectively.

Managing hyperphosphatemia
Phosphorus, an element found in nearly all foods, is absorbed from the gastrointestinal tract into the blood stream. When the kidneys fail, they no longer effectively filter out phosphates, even with the help of blood-cleansing dialysis machines. Consequently, hyperphosphatemia occurs when phosphorous levels in the blood reach higher than normal levels and is considered significant when levels are greater than 5 mg/dL. Most dialysis patients, including some 243,000 Americans, develop hyperphosphatemia.

Hyperphosphatemia disrupts the delicate interplay between the body's levels of calcium, parathyroid hormone (PTH) and vi
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Contact: Michele Roy , Shire
450-978-7938
Porter Novelli
2-Nov-2002