Are you an EPFL student looking for a semester project?
Work with us on data science and visualisation projects, and deploy your project as an app on top of Graph Search.
Concept
Colchicine
Summary
Colchicine is a medication used to treat gout and Behçet's disease. In gout, it is less preferred to NSAIDs or steroids. Other uses for colchicine include the management of pericarditis and familial Mediterranean fever. Colchicine is taken by mouth.
Colchicine has a narrow therapeutic index, so overdosing is a significant risk. Common side effects of colchicine include gastrointestinal upset, particularly at high doses. Severe side effects may include pancytopenia (low blood cell counts) and rhabdomyolysis, and the medication can be deadly in overdose. Whether colchicine is safe for use during pregnancy is unclear, but its use during breastfeeding appears to be safe. Colchicine works by decreasing inflammation via multiple mechanisms.
Colchicine, in the form of the autumn crocus (Colchicum autumnale), has been used as early as 1500 BC to treat joint swelling. It was approved for medical use in the United States in 1961. It is available as a generic medication. In 2020, it was the 241st most commonly prescribed medication in the United States, with more than 1 million prescriptions.
Colchicine is widely used in plant breeding for inducing polyploidy, where the number of chromosomes in plant cells are doubled. This frequently results in larger, hardier, faster-growing, and in general more desirable plants than the normally diploid parents.
Colchicine is an alternative for those unable to tolerate NSAIDs when treating gout. Low doses appear to be well tolerated and may reduce gout symptoms and pain (1.2 mg in one hour, followed by 0.6 mg an hour later). This low dose may have a similar effectiveness to NSAIDS. At high doses, side effects (primarily diarrhea, nausea, or vomiting) limit its use, however may be effective against pain. In addition, there is preliminary evidence that daily colchicine (0.6 mg twice daily) may be effective as a long-term prophylaxis when used with allopurinol to reduce the risk of increased uric acid levels and acute gout flares, although adverse gastrointestinal effects may occur.
Official source
About this result
This page is automatically generated and may contain information that is not correct, complete, up-to-date, or relevant to your search query. The same applies to every other page on this website. Please make sure to verify the information with EPFL's official sources.