Laboratory studies of a potential oral treatment against human African trypanosomiasis

What is it about?

Human African trypanosomiasis is a fatal parasitic disease unless treated. Eflornithine is a recommended treatment in the disease stage when the parasites have infected the central nervous system. Eflornithine is currently dosed intravenously as a 50/50 mixture of L-eflornithine and D-eflornithine. An oral treatment wth eflornithine would be better. We have characterized the anti-parasitic effect of L-eflornithine, D-eflornithine and the L- and D-eflornithine combination in the laboratory and showed that L-eflornithine was a 9-fold more potent drug compared to D-eflornithine.

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Photo by James Wiseman on Unsplash

Photo by James Wiseman on Unsplash

Why is it important?

Our laboratory findings are important as they can be used in the future to further investigate the potential for an oral eflornithine-based treatment using L-eflornithine against this neglected tropical disease.