The mortality rates from the disease are relatively high and stand at 15.3% in the first year, and 43% after five years of diagnosis. For comparison, this is the average mortality rate for all types of cancer.
The disease affects young people, especially women. The peak incidence of the disease is between the ages of 30-40, but the disease is also possible at a later age. The patients are divided according to function levels (1 is the highest, 4 is the lowest) and according to risk levels, low, medium, high.
After a decade in which there were no developments in the treatment of pulmonary embolism, and all treatments were intended to alleviate the symptoms of the disease, the American Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the drug sotatracept, the first in the world to treat the disease itself.
Sotatracept is a breakthrough as it has an innovative and unique mechanism of action that treats the disease itself and not just the symptoms. The drug works with an innovative mechanism, the first of its kind in the field where the component “activin” is inhibited so that it changes the mechanism of the cells that drive the disease.
The approved drug gives patients an improvement beyond the treatments available today, improves survival, and delays the progression of the disease while reducing the risk of a first event of worsening disease or death by approximately 84%.
“Pulmonary hypertension is a serious disease with a significant risk to life,” says Prof. Mordechai Kramer, director of the pulmonary department at Blinson Hospital, “the new drug brings significant news to the patient public, who are not balanced with the existing drugs.” The Ministry of Health usually approves drugs that have passed the The FDA route, after the company submits the research findings to the Ministry of Health.