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Back to Gastroenterology Articles
Saturday 1st January, 2005
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Severe hepatic reactions, including acute liver failure, jaundice, hepatitis
and cholestasis, have been reported in postmarketing data.
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Severe hepatic reactions, including acute liver failure,
jaundice, hepatitis and cholestasis, have been reported in postmarketing
data in patients receiving Remicade.
FDA and Centocor notified healthcare professionals of revisions
to the warnings, adverse reactions sections and patient package
insert of the prescribing information for Remicade, indicated for
the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis, Crohn's disease and
ankylosing spondylitis.
Autoimmune hepatitis has been diagnosed in some of these cases.
Severe hepatic reactions occurred between two weeks to more than a
year after initiation of Remicade. Some of these cases were fatal or
necessitated liver transplantation.
Patients with symptoms or signs of liver dysfunction
should be evaluated for evidence of liver injury. If jaundice and/or
marked liver enzyme elevations (e.g., ≥5 times the upper limit of
normal) develops, Remicade should be discontinued, and a thorough
investigation of the abnormality should be undertaken. As with other
immunosuppressive drugs, use of Remicade has been associated with
reactivation of hepatitis B in patients who are chronic carriers of
this virus (i.e., surface antigen positive). Chronic carriers of
hepatitis B should be appropriately evaluated and monitored prior to
the initiation of and during treatment with Remicade. In clinical
trials, mild or moderate elevations of ALT and AST have been
observed in patients receiving Remicade without progression to
severe hepatic injury.
In addition, Centocor has added pneumonia to the existing
Warnings on Risk of Infections based on clinical trial data in RA
patients described in the Adverse Reactions section of the labeling.

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