New drug trial for older people affected by serious blister disease

27/06/2008

It’s itchy, very painful and potentially fatal, but at last a new clinical trial is hoping to give sufferers of a rare skin condition which effects elderly people a safe and effective treatment - and researchers are looking for volunteers to take part in the UK.

Bullous Pemphigoid (BP) is a serious skin disease which leaves elderly people covered in large skin blisters, at risk of infection and, in around 40% of cases, death. Currently treatment is by oral steroids, which, although effective at getting rid of the blisters, can have serious side effects like high blood pressure, diabetes, osteoporosis and infections if used long-term. 

But now researchers have been awarded nearly £800,000 to fund an international clinical trial of the effectiveness and safety of a simple oral antibiotic and anti-inflammatory drug called doxycycline. A member of the tetracycline family, previous reports have suggested that it may work for treating BP - but with far less risk of serious side effects.

The five year-long ‘BLISTER’ Study is being coordinated at the University of Nottingham by Professor of Dermatology, Hywel Williams, in collaboration with Professor Fenella Wojnarowska from the University of Oxford who is an expert on blistering diseases.

Professor Williams and his team are seeking 250 BP sufferers in the UK and Germany to take part in the randomised trial: half will be treated with the current standard steroid drug prednisolone and half with the doxycycline. Each volunteer will be monitored for a year to see whether doxycycline works as well as prednisolone, but with fewer side effects.

Professor Williams said: “It is wonderful that the NHS has not turned its back on elderly people. BP can be a serious disease, and telling a family member that we don’t know how best to treat it because it is rare is of little comfort. This study could have huge implications for the way it is managed in developed and developing countries since the medicine is widely available at low cost.”

BP mainly affects people over sixty and is more common in the over 80s. It happens when the immune system starts to malfunction and makes antibodies which attack the membrane between the top layer of skin, the epidermis, and the dermis underneath. Itchy patches appear and then tight, watery or blood-filled blisters - which leave skin raw and sore when they burst - are open to infection. It’s quite rare, yet mortality rates remain the same now as they were sixty years ago.

The trial website is linked below. More information is available from Professor Hywel Williams, Professor of Dermato-Epidemiology on 0115 823 1048, or Jo Chalmers, Clinical Trials manager on 0115 846 8622, jo.chalmers@nottingham.ac.uk.