What are the treatments for Hereditary angioedema ?
How might hereditary angioedema be treated? Medical treatment of hereditary angioedema (HAE) consists of preventing attacks and managing acute attacks once they occur. During attacks, patients may require respiratory support. They also may require large amounts of intravenous fluids to maintain hemodynamic stability. Until recently, no effective agent for acute attacks existed in the United States. Now, however, several agents have been approved, and others are in the midst of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval process. In October 2008, the US FDA approved the use of C1-INH (Cinryze) for prophylaxis to prevent attacks. In October 2009, the FDA approved C1-INH (Berinert) for the treatment of acute abdominal and facial angioedema attacks in adolescents and adults with HAE.In December 2009, ecallantide (Kalbitor), a kallikrein inhibitor, was approved for the treatment of acute attacks.  In August 2011, the FDA approved Firazyr (icatibant) Injection for the treatment of acute attacks in people ages 18 years and older.  Firazyr can be self-administered through an injection in the abdominal area so patients can treat themselves when they realize they are having an  HAE attack. An article from the eMedicine Journal provides more detailed information on these medications and other methods of treating HAE at the following link. You may need to register to view the article, but registration is free. http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/135604-treatment  The US Hereditary Angioedema Association also provides additional information about treatment of HAE.   http://www.haea.org/treating-hae/treatments/ Orphanet, a database dedicated to information on rare diseases and orphan drugs, provides guidelines regarding emergency management of hereditary angioedema at the following link. http://www.orpha.net/consor/cgi-bin/Disease_Emergency.php?lng=EN&stapage=FICHE_URGENCE_A1