Drug Studied at UTHSCT Offers Triple Effectiveness Rate of Alternatives

February 25, 2019

A new drug studied by researchers at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Tyler (UTHSCT) has been shown to triple the treatment success rate in patients with treatment refractory Mycobacterium avium complex (MAC), a debilitating lung disease.

“We have been treating MAC patients for decades without having a drug specifically approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to treat it, so this is a ground-breaking study,” said UTHSCT physician and researcher David E. Griffith, MD.

“Amikacin liposome inhalation suspension, or ALIS, is the first drug approved by the FDA specifically for hard-to-treat MAC. It is also the first drug that rigorous randomized trials have shown is effective against MAC lung infection,” Dr. Griffith continued.

UTHSCT colleagues Julie Philley, MD, and Richard Wallace, MD, both treat patients with MAC and contributed to the development of ALIS.

“UTHSCT has been recognized for decades for its MAC research and for its treatment of patients with this disease. The work led by Dr. Griffith will change the treatment landscape for mycobacterial disease and offers hope to patients with limited options,” Dr. Philley said.

Investigators at UTHSCT including Dr. Griffith, Dr. Wallace, Dr. Philley and Barbara Brown-Elliott have spent almost three decades researching an effective treatment for MAC, a chronic disease that causes fever, night sweats, cough, weight loss, and severe fatigue.

While MAC has been rare, it is becoming increasingly more common in the United States and other parts of the world, Dr. Griffith said. “We still do not know the true impact of MAC on our healthcare system, but it’s unquestionably growing. It is becoming a bigger financial burden on the system partly because standard treatment is ineffective for so many patients,” he said.

Dr. Griffith was first in the list of 25 authors; Drs. Philley and Wallace also were co-authors. Besides UTHSCT, participating U.S. institutions were the Mayo Clinic, the New York School of Medicine, the Georgetown University School of Medicine, the Medical University of South Carolina, Stanford University, and the Oregon Health & Sciences University.

In addition, healthcare institutions in Australia, Canada, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, South Korea, and the United Kingdom contributed to the study.