... danazol for severe disease

Short-term administration of the synthetic androgenic hormone, danazol, allowed nine of ten patients with hemophilia to cut down their use of factor VIII or IX concentrate in recent studies. A report of the work was given at the recent meeting of the American Society for Clinical Investigation in Washington, DC. "The findings indicate that danazol is effective treatment in some patients with hemophilia," said Harvey R. Gralnick, MD, chief of the Hematology Section at the Clinical Center of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Bethesda, Md. So far, ten patients—eight with hemophilia A, so-called classic hemophilia, and two with hemophilia B, or Christmas disease—have been treated with danazol in what Gralnick stresses is a preliminary clinical trial. Most of the patients had moderately severe forms of the disease with coagulation activities ranging from 1% to 5%. Five of the patients were treated at the NIH Clinical Center (New England Journal