Folinic Acid - For Stan

[Guest guest]

I think Folinic Acid must br th big brother of Folic Acid. Wikipedi describes

it this way, its therapuetic effects:

Folinic acid is administered at the appropriate time following methotrexate as

part of a total chemotherapeutic plan, where it may " rescue " bone marrow and

gastrointestinal mucosa cells from methotrexate. There is no apparent effect on

preexisting methotrexate-induced nephrotoxicity.[2]

While not specifically an antidote for methotrexate, folinic acid may also be

useful in the treatment of acute methotrexate overdose. Different dosing

protocols are used, but folinic acid should be re-dosed until the methotrexate

level is less than 5 x 10-8 M [3]

Folinic acid is also used in combination with the chemotherapy agent

5-fluorouracil in treating colon cancer. In this case, folinic acid is not used

for " rescue " purposes; rather, it enhances the effect of 5-fluorouracil by

inhibiting thymidylate synthase.

Folinic acid is also sometimes used to prevent toxic effects of high doses of

antimicrobial dihydrofolate reductase inhibitors such as trimethoprim and

pyrimethamine.

Folinic acid has dextro- and levo-isomers, only the latter one being

pharmacologically useful. As such, Levoleucovorin was approved by the FDA in

2008.[4]

All I know is that taking every day, as opposed to once a week lessens the

effectws of MTX, and right now MTX is my tiger (I hope)

Thanks OKD