New treatment?

[gotmilk]

Just found this. Wonder if this might one day help people who suffer from chronic prostatitis / chronic pelvic pain syndrome or Prostitis?


http://www.cnn.com/2004/HEALTH/conditio ... index.html

[webslave]

The drug kills close to 90 percent of B cells, which the body then replenishes with healthy new ones.

Whoa! This is heroic medicine, not what's required in a chronic pain condition that usually yields to non-invasive therapy.

[gotmilk]

"One of the things that is truly unique is that a very short course ... appears to have a very long-lasting effect," Klippel said.

Yeah I know, just thought maybe one day this would help targeted anti-inflamatroy response etc.

[webslave]

Unfortunately (fortunately?) rheumatoid arthritis and chronic pelvic pain are not similar enough to make this comparison. Other RA drugs have failed for us.

[james-d]

I thought there was some reported success with Arthrotec (spelling) or am I mistaken?

[webslave]

Arthrotec is simply a powerful NSAID.

[james-d]

yes - but I thought that it was found useful in symptom relief.

When I was in bad pain I used NSAIDS a lot (Aleve (naproxen) mostly aka naproxen) - so I think they definitly have their place in the treatment protocol.

[webslave]

There have been anecdotal reports of success using NSAIDS and specifically Arthrotec. However, a study by Dr Curtis Nickel showed NSAIDs were not particularly useful, although they do help some men. His 2003 study of Vioxx showed the outcomes were not significantly different among groups (treatment vs control).

There was a trend for the percentage of patients with a 25% (or 6 point) improvement in total score being superior on rofecoxib (Vioxx) versus placebo with the difference being significantly different (p <0.05) for the 50 mg. rofecoxib group. Patient global assessment of pain, response to therapy and disease activity also favored rofecoxib over placebo (p <0.05, p = 0.07, p = 0.06, respectively). Of the patients 79% on 50 mg. rofecoxib versus 59% on placebo reported no or mild pain, and 56% of patients on 50 mg. rofecoxib versus 27% on placebo experienced significant improvement in quality of life (p <0.005). Rofecoxib was generally well tolerated. CONCLUSIONS: To our knowledge this study is the first to evaluate rofecoxib versus placebo in patients with prostatitis and the first large multicenter treatment study to use the NIH-CPSI. Subjective assessment with patient global questions may be more sensitive to change than the NIH-CPSI and, therefore, may be a better tool to use in future therapeutic trials. Although 6 weeks of rofecoxib treatment appear to benefit many men diagnosed with chronic prostatitis/chronic pelvic pain syndrome further studies are needed.