Lupus is a chronic autoimmune disease affecting more than one million people nationwide. There hasn't been a new treatment approved for the disease in the last 40 years, but now, new research is providing more hope. NY1 Health & Fitness Reporter Kafi Drexel filed this report.

The autoimmune disease Lupus, which mainly affects women, can cause inflammation and tissue damage to almost any of the body's organs, especially the kidneys.

For decades, the standard of care for treating patients suffering from lupus kidney disease, also known as lupus nephritis, has been an intravenous form of chemotherapy, Cytoxan. But many say the treatment has almost been worse than the disease itself.

“The current medications that physicians have to treat lupus have disastrous side-effects: infertility, bone loss,” says Maragaret Dowd, the Executive Director of the S.L.E. Lupus Foundation. “It's not uncommon for young women in their 30s to have hip replacements and bone replacements from the drugs.”

But results of a new study in the New England Journal of Medicine are showing an immuno-suppressive drug called CellCept could be the alternative. The oral drug from Roche Pharmaceuticals, already approved by the FDA for use in organ transplant patients, had stronger results with less severe side effects.

Dr. Ellen Ginzler at SUNY Downstate Medical Center led the study, and says the findings offer patients something they might not have had before - choice.

“As the results of this study are becoming known, it has in fact certainly become an equivalent standard of care,” says Dr. Ginzler. “And for many physicians it's becoming the first-line drug, with Cytoxan now reserved for patients who are extremely ill and might not respond to CellCept.”

Her patient, Pamela Ennis, has been struggling with lupus for the past 20 years. Up until the trial she was seriously ill with kidney disease. She was put on CellCept as part of the trial, and now she says the nephritis is in remission.

“I see people on kidney dialysis and I don't think I could handle that, or to lose a kidney from lupus,” she says. “For me it's a miracle, because right now my kidney function is perfect.”

Doctors and advocates are hoping this latest information will open the door for the FDA to approve more new treatments.

Something to note; patients trying CellCept did experience side-affects including nausea and some gastro-intestinal issues. But none had symptoms severe enough to stop treatment, unlike the intravenous chemotherapy treatment which in the past, despite risks of kidney failure or death, caused some patients not to follow through with it.

- Kafi Drexel