Interstitial cystitis study finds limited benefit in two ...( on treatment might result in faster mo...),Health

on treatment might result in faster, more effective symptom relief. However, neither of the drugs nor the combination therapy produced a statistically significant benefit in patients. Forty percent of volunteers who took the combined treatment benefited. Elmiron alone helped 28 percent of patients in the trial, while 23 percent had a positive response to Atarax. Side effects were minimal.

"We believe that IC may be caused by many different factors," says Leroy M. Nyberg, M.D., NIDDK's Urology Program Director. "That would explain why some treatments work for certain patients but not others. It's also possible that these treatments might work better for IC patients with less severe symptoms than those seen in the volunteers," Nyberg adds.

Because these treatments proved ineffective for the majority of patients, researchers do not plan to expand the trial, ordinarily the next step if a pilot study is successful. They say, however, that they have gained useful information for future clinical trials in IC. In fact, the group has already recruited patients for its second treatment study, which is testing whether the bacterium Bacillus Calmette-Gurin (BCG), directly instilled in the bladder, relieves the pelvic pain and frequent urination that are hallmarks of IC (see http://www.niddk.nih.gov/welcome/releases/10-25-01.htm).

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Contact: Mary Harris
Mary_Harris@nih.gov
301-496-3583
NIH/National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases
14-Aug-2003

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