Can azt be prescribed for other diseases or just aids??

Answer 1

I only know it to be diagnosed for HIV/AIDS. Where I work, babies from HIV moms receive it to help fight the disease, which babies sometimes make the antibodies to, but still do not have test positive for the disease after six months from birth.

Answer 2

Zidovudine was the first drug approved for the treatment of AIDS and HIV infection. Jerome Horwitz of Barbara Ann Karmanos Cancer Institute and Wayne State University School of Medicine first synthesized AZT in 1964, under a US National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant. It was originally intended to treat cancer, but failed to show efficacy and had an unacceptably high side effect profile. The drug then faded from view until February 1985, when Samuel Broder, Hiroaki Mitsuya, and Robert Yarchoan, three scientists in the National Cancer Institute (NCI), collaborating with Janet Rideout and several other scientists in Burroughs Wellcome Co., started working on it as an AIDS drug. After showing that this drug was an effective agent against HIV in vitro, the team conducted the initial clinical trial that provided evidence that it could increase CD4 counts in AIDS patients.

A placebo-controlled randomized trial of AZT was subsequently conducted by Burroughs-Wellcome (now GlaxoSmithKline), in which it was shown that it could prolong the life of patients with AIDS. Burroughs Wellcome Co. filed for a patent on AZT in 1986. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the drug (via the then-new FDA accelerated approval system) for use against HIV, AIDS, and AIDS Related Complex (ARC, a now-defunct medical term for pre-AIDS illness) on March 20, 1987, and then as a preventive treatment in 1990. It was initially administered in much higher dosages than today, typically one 400mg dose every four hours (even at night). However, the unavailability at that time of alternatives to treat AIDS affected the risk/benefit ratio, with the certain toxicity of HIV infection outweighing the risk of drug toxicity. One of AZT's side effects includes anemia, a common complaint in early trials.

Modern treatment regimens typically use lower dosages two to three times a day in order to improve the overall quality of life. Like other antiretroviral drugs, AZT is also almost always used in highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART). That is, it is combined with other drugs in order to prevent mutation of the HIV into an AZT-resistant form.[1][2]

The crystal structure of AZT was reported by Alan Howie (Aberdeen University) in 1988.[3] In the solid state AZT forms a hydrogen bond network. Note that AZT is based upon a sugar.

Answer 3

zidovudine is specific to aids treatment