Title:Allopurinol Hypersensitivity Reactions: Desensitization Strategies and New Therapeutic Alternative Molecules
VOLUME: 12 ISSUE: 1
Author(s):Gianfranco Calogiuri, Eustachio Nettis, Elisabetta Di Leo, Caterina Foti, Antonio Ferrannini and Lavjay Butani
Affiliation:Pneumology Department - Hospital Ninetto Melli-S. Pietro Vernotico, Brindisi, Italy.
Keywords:Allopurinol, anakinra, desensitization, febuxostat, hypersensitivity, rasburicase, hypoxanthine, gout, TNF-alpha, hyperuricemia
Abstract:Allopurinol, an analog of hypoxanthine has been worldwide used for the treatment of hyperuricemia and gout
for over 40 years. Unfortunately some patients assuming this medication have developed hypersensitivity reactions
ranging from mild cutaneous eruption to more severe clinical manifestations such as allopurinol hypersensitivity
syndrome or Steven-Johnson syndrome and lethal toxic epidermal necrolysis. Various strategies of slow desensitization
have been elaborated to reintroduce allopurinol in a part of these patients, mainly patients affected by mild skin reactions
as fixed drug eruption or exanthema. However, several new uricosuric therapies have been recently introduced. Actually
drugs as recombinant urate oxidase and febuxostat are under post-marketing surveillance to control potential adverse
effects related to their immunogenicity even.
