Rome, 17 December 2012 – THOSE WHO HAVE SUFFERED a kidney, liver or other organ transplant are "special" because they need drugs that minimize the risk of rejection and the loss of the transplanted organ from the donor. And it is necessary to ensure drugs that guarantee the desired effect.
This observation prompted the appeal of the Italian Organ Transplant Society (SITO) to ensure that these people are guaranteed original medicines, even if equivalents are available.
«SOME immunosuppressant drugs, such as tacrolimus, fall into the category of drugs with a low therapeutic index: even slight changes in the plasma concentration of these drugs can lead to serious consequences in terms of toxicity or loss of efficacy - explains Pasquale Berloco (in the photo), SITO President -. In this particular therapeutic field, the substitution of an original drug with a generic one, or that of a generic with another generic, must be prescribed by an expert transplant doctor and evaluated in its risk/benefit ratio since each substitution must be followed by controls of the plasma levels of the drug and repeated and consecutive substitutions must absolutely be avoided".
In Italy there are about three thousand people who undergo organ transplantation every year. The success rates are high, especially for liver, kidney and heart transplants and the return to everyday life is also valid. The Italian patients undergoing transplantation who work or are in a position to do so are 90.3% for heart transplantation, 78.2% for liver transplantation and 89.8% for kidney transplantation.
