Clevipidine
Aronson et al. The ECLIPSE trials: comparative studies of clevidipine to nitroglycerin, sodium nitroprusside, and nicardipine for acute hypertension treatment in cardiac surgery patients. Anesth Analg (2008) vol. 107 (4) pp. 1110-21
Clevipidine is a short-acting, IV, calcium channel blocker licensed for blood pressure control. The ECLIPSE Trial is a randomized, multi-center, open-label, prospective trial of perioperative blood pressure control for cardiac surgery. clevidipine was compared to nitroglycerine, sodium-nitroprusside and nicardipine in three parallel trials. The primary outcome was safety with a secondary outcome of efficacy.
Efficacy was measured by a method I have never seen before. The key measure of efficacy was keeping the blood pressure in the normal range so the authors measured the area under the curve for time versus SBP outside of the target blood pressure:
The authors found no difference in safety among the four drugs, though there was a pesky P=0.04 for increased death with sodium nitroprusside compared to clevidipine:
Clevidipine was significantly more efficacious than all competitors as individuals (except nicardipine) and when compared to all comparators.
Lupus Membranous Nephritis
Austin et al. Randomized, controlled trial of prednisone, cyclophosphamide, and cyclosporine in lupus membranous nephropathy. J Am Soc Nephrol (2009) vol. 20 (4) pp. 901-11
Prospective randomized controlled trial to compared cyclosporin for 11 months, to alternate-month cyclophosphamide for 11 months, to alternate-day prednisone alone.
Primary outcome was time to remission (less than 0.3 g of protein).
Both CSA and prednisone were significantly better at achieving remission (complete and partial) than oral prednisone:
As we have seen in prior trials of cyclosporin in proteinuric renal disease (see FSGS), when the cyclosporin is stopped the proteinuria returns:
A well done, but small trial. Good to see an RCT in this rare entity because evidence based data on how to handle membranous lupus has been scant.