SYDNEY, May 18 (Xinhua) -- A randomised controlled trial in IgA nephropathy has found that a cheap and widely used corticosteroid drug halves the risk of losing kidney function and kidney failure.
The study, led by the George Institute for Global Health, was a double-blinded, randomised, controlled trial involving 67 sites across multiple countries that assessed the effects of oral methylprednisolone on major kidney problems. The paper was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association on Tuesday.
As part of the study, 503 patients with IgA nephropathy were randomly assigned to one of two groups treated with methylprednisolone or a matching placebo between May 2012 and November 2019.
Among them, 262 patients were also told to take a full dose of 0.6-0.8mg/kg per day of methylprednisolone or placebo, while 241 participants took a reduced dose of 0.4mg/kg per day of two drugs. Doses were reduced after two months for both groups.
"We found that the treatment with methylprednisolone for six to nine months significantly reduced the risk of losing substantial kidney function, kidney failure requiring dialysis or transplantation, or death from kidney disease compared to placebo," said Joint Principal Investigator Vlado Perkovic from Australia's University of New South Wales.
However, Perkovic added there was an increase in serious adverse events in those who received methylprednisolone, mainly seen in the full dose regimen with fewer in the reduced dose treatment group.
Joint Principal Investigator Hong Zhang from China's Peking University First Hospital said that a well-known side effect of steroid treatment is an increased risk of infections, but "this could be mitigated to a degree by using the lower dose and giving the patients antibiotics to prevent infections".
IgA nephropathy, also known as Berger's disease, is an auto-immune condition in which a type of antibody produced by the body to fight infection forms deposits in the kidney leading to inflammation and scarring and progressing to cause kidney failure in many people.
Researchers added that given that the condition develops slowly, and that there was some indication that the effects of treatment appeared to diminish over time, the research team has now extended the study with another five years of follow-up. ■