Twenty-seven patients with myasthenia gravis have been treated with azathioprine in conjunction with pyridostigmine and prednisolone for a total of 138 patient years. Side effects necessitated discontinuation of treatment in only four patients. Treatment with azathioprine was associated with marked clinical improvement in all the remaining 23 patients, resulting in reduction in the dose of pyri...

A patient with classic rheumatoid arthritis developed biopsy-proven diffuse interstitial pulmonary fibrosis and ventilatory insufficiency which appeared to be irreversible. The administration of azathioprine coincided with significant immediate improvement in pulmonary function and clinical status. During five years of continuous azathioprine therapy, progressive improvement in lung function ha...

Acute pancreatitis is a rare but often lethal complication in post-transplant patients. Azathioprine is one of the incriminated agents out of the multiple possible aetiological factors. We present a case who developed acute necrotizing pancreatitis while on immunosuppression, which included azathioprine, for more than a year in the post-transplant period, and review the literature regarding pos...

This paper reports a case of S. constellatus chorioamnionitis in a pregnant Crohn's disease patient who was taking azathioprine. Chorioamnionitis is a major cause of perinatal morbidity. Azathioprine, an immunosuppressive antimetabolite, is widely used to treat inflammatory bowel disease. Streptococcus constellatus is a Gram-positive bacterium that has not previously been associated with chorio...

Azathioprine (Imuran) was administered to seven patients with ulcerative colitis suffering from a relapse which could not be controlled by adrenocortical steroids. In four patients remission started one to two weeks after initiation of antimetabolite therapy. Corticosteroid administration was continued concurrently with azathioprine, but the dosage could be reduced and in one case they were wit...

A simple and rapid differential pulse polarographic method was developed for the trace determination of azathioprine. A welldefined polarogram with three peaks was obtained in acetate buffer (pH 5.0) with peak potentials -0.27 V, -0.73 V and -1.02 V. The current-concentration linearity was found extend up to 5 x 10 mol L (r = 0.9992) with minimum detection limit of 2.8x10 mol L. The values of r...

Rheumatic diseases are not commonly associated with cytomegalovirus (CMV) retinitis. We report a case of bilateral CMV retinitis in a human immunodeficiency virus-seronegative patient with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) who was undergoing hemodialysis for end-stage renal disease. The CMV retinitis in this patient was associated with combined azathioprine and low-dose corticosteroid therapy ...

Oral 5-aminosalicylic acid agents (mesalazine and sulfasalazine) and azathioprine are the mainstays of treatment for inflammatory bowel disease. Reports of pulmonary toxicity induced by oral 5-aminosalicylic acid agents or azathioprine in patients with inflammatory bowel disease are very rare; to date, only 38 cases have been reported worldwide. We, herein, report a case involving a 26-year-old...