“Tafenoquine is going to make a huge difference, I think, in people who are severely immunocompromised,” said study first author Dr. Peter Krause, a senior research scientist in the Yale School of Public Health Department of Epidemiology of Microbial Diseases. It’s caused by parasitic microorganisms, and was first reported in humans in 1957, researchers said in background notes.
This combo “works in virtually every patient with mild disease,” said study co-author Edouard Vannier, an assistant professor in the Tufts Medical Center’s Division of Geographic Medicine and Infectious Diseases in Boston. However, the babesiosis parasite has been developing resistance against this therapy, researchers said.
“In patients who are severely ill and severely immunocompromised, because resolution does not happen fast enough, the parasite has a chance to mutate,” Vannier explained in a Yale news release. “Very often, atovaquone resistance is noted.” Faced with such resistance, patients can suffer a relapse into severe babesiosis. Among those who relapse, as many as one-fifth die, researchers said. The patients in this new study had immune deficiencies, and they suffered dangerous relapses after the two-drug therapy didn’t knock out the parasite. Four out of five patients were cured after receiving tafenoquine, researchers report. Still, researchers found that tafenoquine overcame the resistance of the babesiosis parasite. In the future, doctors might wind up testing a babesiosis patient to see which specific resistances their parasites have developed, and then choosing appropriate drugs to counter them, Vannier said. “Testing for mutations is the future of treating these patients and opens the door to personalized medicine,” Vannier said. “The whole idea is to tailor the therapy to the patient.”
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