Bronchitol Patient Profiles
Leaping into life!
Keen amateur basketballer Paul Kingsley was considering giving up the game he loves after severe bronchiectasis left him sidelined.
“I was spending more time off the court than on because of my bronchiectasis,” says 48-year-old Paul, who’s been playing competition basketball since he was 21.
“I was constantly coughing throughout the game; three minutes out of five I’d be coughing up a lung.”
Paul was diagnosed with bronchiectasis a year ago after “trying every antibiotic known to man” to treat what some doctors thought was the flu.
Fortunately the diagnosing doctor recommended Paul be placed on the Phase III trial of Bronchitol for bronchiectasis. Within a few weeks of using Bronchitol he was back in the game, breathing much easier.
“My lung capacity and peak flow were the best results I’d had in years,” recalls Paul. “As soon as I started on it I knew I wanted to stay on it because it was making such a difference.”
“But before Bronchitol, nothing worked. I was told to live with it by the doctors,” explains Paul.
For Paul, the benefits of Bronchitol aren’t just being felt on the basketball court.
“My wife was ready to divorce me or kick me out into another room because of my coughing,” he recalls with a smile. “So the outcome on Bronchitol has been excellent in terms of she’s not going to divorce me for that just yet!”
watch videoCaring for the kids
As one of Australia’s leading paediatric respiratory physicians, Dr Peter Cooper knows the joy and heartbreak of treating children with cystic fibrosis.
“You develop a strong bond with the kids and their families as you watch them grow up,” says Peter, who heads the cystic fibrosis department of The Children’s Hospital at Westmead, Sydney.
The life expectancy of people born with cystic fibrosis is gradually increasing with improvements in therapy; sufferers now live to an average age of 37 years.
Peter says while his patients are fully aware of their inevitable decline, they make the best of their lives.
“It’s a privilege to help these young people with an incurable disease live their lives as fully as they can,” he says.
With no new treatments in over a decade, Peter believes cystic fibrosis deserves a higher profile and attention from pharmaceutical companies.
“Some of the existing therapies aren’t always well tolerated, so anything that could improve their daily quality of life would be good.
“A drug that can enhance mucus production and clearance would significantly improve their outcomes.”
Peter says the Phase II results of Pharmaxis’ Bronchitol offer cause for optimism.
“The results are encouraging; Bronchitol is another potentially very useful way of clearing secretions.”
Peter says he and thousands of cystic fibrosis patients are keenly anticipating the results of the Phase III trial of Bronchitol in cystic fibrosis, due the first quarter of 2009.
