Drug found effective against childhood diarrhea

BOSTON (Reuters) -- The drug racecadotril, when given with fluids, is more effective than fluids alone for treating watery diarrhea in children, according to a study of 135 Peruvian boys published in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine.

A four-member team led by Dr. Eduardo Salazar-Lindo of the Hospital Nacional Cayetano Heredia in Lima conducted the tests from 1994 to 1998 to see if the drug is an effective treatment in developing countries, where children sometimes are malnourished.

The drug is sold under the brand name Tiorfan by Bioprojet Pharma in Paris. Bioprojet paid for the study.

Diarrhea, an unpleasant inconvenience for people in the industrialized world, is a deadly affliction in developing countries, where it kills as many as 2 million people each year, most of them children, according to drug company SmithKline Beecham, which sells the drug.

A previous study in France found the drug to be effective in children age three months to four years, Salazar-Lindo said in an interview with Reuters.

Five days after starting treatment, the Salazar-Lindo team found, 84 percent of the boys getting racecadotril were cured versus 66 percent of the boys who got to drink only fluids. Twenty-four percent of the boys who received the drug showed improvement within 24 hours, versus 8 percent of the boys who received only fluids.

"When used as an adjunct to oral rehydration therapy, racecadotril may reduce both the severity and duration of diarrhea and the duration of hospitalization," the researchers said.

Although only boys were included in the study, they said, "there is no reason to expect (girls) would respond differently."

Girls were excluded because the study required bacterial tests on the feces, and the researchers wanted "to avoid contamination of stool with urine," they said.

The drug, also known as acetorphan, has not been approved for use in the United States. The adult and pediatric forms have been approved in France. It has been approved for adults, but not children, in Peru, Salazar-Lindo told Reuters.

However, SmithKline Beecham says it has begun selling the drug under the brand name Hidrasec throughout Southeast Asia, Africa and Latin America.

Copyright 2000 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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