BACKGROUND The combination of cyclophosphamide and glucocorticoids leads to remission in most patients with antineutrophil cytoplasm antibody (ANCA)-associated vasculitides. However, even when patients receive maintenance treatment with azathioprine or methotrexate, the relapse rate remains high. Rituximab may help to maintain remission. METHODS Patients with newly diagnosed or relapsing gran...

BACKGROUND Crohn's disease is a chronic inflammatory disease of the alimentary tract. Azathioprine is an effective agent in the management of chronic active Crohn's disease leading to long term remission of disease activity. Such treatment leads to limited efficacy or side effects in a small subset of patients. AIMS To compare efficacy and side effects of treatment with azathioprine plus cort...

Azathioprine and 6-mercaptopurine are antimetabolite thiopurine drugs that play important roles in the treatment of leukemia and in the management of conditions requiring immunosuppression, such as inflammatory bowel disease. The biochemical pharmacology of these drugs suggests that inhibition of purine nucleotide formation through the 6-thioguanine nucleotide metabolites is their key molecular...

Sir, We greatly appreciate your interest in our article. The study by Sayani et al. (2005) has shown that there is no correlation between the TPMT activity and the development of azathioprine induced adverse events. Therefore estimation of TPMT levels to predict adverse events seems unnecessary. The apprehension of using 300 mg pulse doses of azathioprine in the absence of TPMT assessment also ...

BACKGROUND A small percentage of children with Henoch-Schönlein purpura (HSP) develop a chronic form of the disease that often requires prolonged corticosteroid therapy. Disease modifying anti-rheumatic agents (DMARDs) or biologics have been successfully used to treat those refractory cases. Azathioprine is a DMARD that has been reported to be effective in HSP nephritis and in adult cutaneous l...

DURING THE LAST DECADE, only three major immunosuppressants have been used extensively for whole organ transplantation, namely azathioprine, prednisone, and heterologous antilymphocyte globulin. None of these agents is sufficiently potent to permit consistent success when used alone in human beings. Consequently, the drugs have been administered in the double combination of azathioprine and pre...

Azathioprine is the most common drug used to maintain clinical remission in inflammatory bowel disease. This drug is also important as a steroid-sparing agent in steroid-dependent and chronically active inflammatory bowel disease. Nevertheless, many questions remain concerning the optimal treatment regimens of azathioprine. The dose of azathioprine has to be reduced or the therapy has to be dis...