New Drug Approved for Huntington's

(August 21, 2008) - Patients with Huntington's disease (Read about "Huntington's Disease") now have a new treatment available for the jerky, involuntary movement that occurs in people with this disease. That condition is called chorea. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved Xenazine (tetrabenazine) for the treatment of chorea in people with Huntington's disease.

Xenazine is a new drug and is the first treatment of any kind approved in the United States for any symptom of Huntington's disease. Currently there are no other drugs that are FDA-approved to treat chorea.

Serious side effects reported with use of Xenazine include depression and suicidal thoughts and actions. (Read about "Depressive Illnesses" "Suicide Prevention") Concerns about the risk of suicide are heightened in all patients with Huntington's disease.

"Xenazine represents hope for patients and families dealing with this difficult disease," said Timothy Coté, M.D., M.P.H., director of FDA's Office of Orphan Products Development. "For the first time, there is a treatment that can help patients with this disease gain some quality of life."

Huntington's disease is a rare, inherited neurological disorder affecting about 1 in 10,000 people in the United States. The disease results from genetically programmed degeneration of brain cells. The deterioration causes uncontrolled movements, loss of intellectual faculties, and emotional disturbance. Huntington's disease is passed from parent to child through a gene mutation. Each child of a parent with the disease has a 50 percent chance of inheriting the mutation.

Folk singer Woody Guthrie is perhaps the most famous person to suffer from Huntington's. About 30,000 people in the United States have Huntington's disease and another 200,000 are at risk of developing the condition. Symptoms commonly develop between ages 30 and 50. The disease progresses slowly and a person may live for another 15-20 years after the onset of symptoms.