|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Press
Releases Packard
Children's News
Children's Fund
Update |
|
|
 |
| Rachel volunteered for a clinical trial to test a new drug that aims to combat lung inflammation, a CF symptom which many patients constantly battle. |
Some kids and for that matter, some adults, might get pretty tired of doing all that therapy and the last thing they would want is to add yet another task to their treatment regimen. But when Rachel's doctor at the CF Clinic, Carol Conrad, MD, started a clinical trial of a new drug therapy to combat CF, Rachel readily agreed to participate. "I wanted to help people," she says.
The goal of the clinical trial was to see how effective a medication called NAC (N-acetyl cysteine) could be in combating lung inflammation, a CF symptom which many patients, including Rachel, constantly battle.
The NAC came in tablets that the participants had to dissolve in any liquid except milk and drink three times a day. According to many of the trial participants, the medicine tasted like, well, medicine. "At first it tasted really nasty," says Rachel, "but now I'm getting used to it."
Many CF patients have digestive problems, and Rachel's mother, Sandra Crowder, says Rachel's stomach used to hurt almost daily. But since she started taking NAC, "I haven't had so many stomach aches," Rachel says.
Just as important as Rachel's improved digestion, Conrad points out, is that her lung function has also improved, as it did for the other study participants. Conrad says that consistent progress should help NAC eventually become an approved therapy for CF, which will be due in no small part to volunteers like Rachel.
| |||||||||
 |
Rachel