Vasculitis Foundation Canada

By Jon Stewart

Pexivas Donation

Vasculitis Donates Again – PEXIVAS

On October 22, 2011, Vasculitis Foundation Canada gave $15,000.00 to the St. Joseph’s Healthcare Foundation for vasculitis research under the name PEXIVAS.

Dr. Michael Walsh of the Department of Clinical Epidemeology and Biostatistics, McMaster University Health Science Centre, Hamilton along with Dr. Peter Merkel, Boston, Massachusetts, USA and Dr. David Jayne, Cambridge, England work together in this program.

Dr. Walsh has submitted the following:

The treatment of patients with severe, anti-neutrophil cytoplasm antibody associated vasculitis (AAV) faces two major problems:

  1. current treatment strategies fail to bring the disease under control quickly, before it causes major organ damage, and
  2. current treatments have a serious toxicities. PEXIVAS is study that examining potential solutions to these problems in patients with severe AAV that affects their kidneys or lungs.

Patients are randomly assigned to receive plasma exchange, a method of rapidly removing antibodies, including those that may cause AAV, to quickly gain control of AAV , in addition to standard therapy or standard therapy alone. Patients will also be randomly assigned to receive either a standard dose of prednisone or a reduce-dose which may reduce treatment related toxicity. By addressing both these critical problems we hope to significantly improve patient survival and reduce the frequency of kidney failure in patients with severe AAV.

The photo below shows Dr. Michael Walsh being given the donation, with Donna Wall and Bob Wall to his left and Carol Moller to his right.

pexivas