A potential breakthrough in the treatment of idiopathic pulmonary haemosiderosis, which is a rare but devastating medical condition affecting children and young people, as per researchers at Queen Mary University London and the University of Leicester.

The preliminary data of an already treated patient was published as a letter in the New England Journal of Medicine.

From News-Medical.Net:

Jonathan Grigg, Professor of Paediatric Respiratory and Environmental Medicine at Queen Mary University London, said: “Idiopathic pulmonary haemosiderosis is a rare disease, the cause of which is unknown.

“Affected patients have episodes of bleeding in the lungs, which often need hospital admissions, and in some cases it can be life threatening. This is normally combated by the use of continuous oral steroids (which can have major side effects).

“In a child local to Leicester, we were able to show, for the first time, that there was high levels of oxidative stress in the lungs. In addition, we treated the increased oxidative stress by using of an antioxidant, N-acetyl cysteine - which has no side effects. Since she has been on this treatment she has had no lung bleeds, and the steroid dose has been significantly reduced.”

Dr Marcus Cooke, Senior lecturer in the Radiation and Oxidative Stress Section at the University of Leicester said that we will see a growing use of biomarkers of oxidative stress to support clinical decisions.