RESEARCH ARTICLE
Overview of Sulfonamides and Related Medications: Query if Mesalamine should be Preferred Over Dapsone and Sulfasalazine
Craig G. Burkhart*, 1, Craig N. Burkhart2
Article Information
Identifiers and Pagination:
Year: 2009Volume: 3
First Page: 65
Last Page: 67
Publisher ID: TODJ-3-65
DOI: 10.2174/1874372200903010065
Article History:
Received Date: 27/02/2009Revision Received Date: 26/03/2009
Acceptance Date: 28/03/2009
Electronic publication date: 5/5/2009
Collection year: 2009
open-access license: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License (CC-BY 4.0), a copy of which is available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode. This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Abstract
Sulfonamide research led to the discovery of dapsone and sulfasalzine. Both of these latter drugs have found a niche in the dermatological armamentarium especially for treatment of numerous non-infectious, inflammatory, autoimmune, and bullous disesases. These drugs, however, have side effects which include toxic hepatitis, neuropathy, cholestatic jaundice, hemolysis and methemoglobinemia. In the case of sulfasalamine, it is a conjugate of mesalamine and sulfapyridine. Of note, the latter moiety, sulfapyridine, is no longer available for human use as a separate drug due to side effects. In regards again with sulfasalazine, a pharmacology textbook credits mesalamine to be the major therapeutic moiety, while sulfapyridine is the culprit of the most significant adverse effects.
There has been a suggestion in the literature that mesalamine may be the preferred agent for some of these dermatologic therapies for which Dapsone and sulfasalazine are presently suggested. A major impetus to seek this alternate therapy would be its more favorable side effect profile. Certainly more clinical studies using mesalamine are warranted to attest to its clinical effectiveness in relation to the two more established alternatives.
