Study Finds Palatin's Leutech Provides Better Appendicitis Diagnosis
Dow Jones Online News, Monday, April 26, 1999 at 20:57
By Raymond Hennessey, Staff Reporter
NEW YORK -(Dow Jones)- A quicker and more effective method to
diagnose appendicitis may be in the offering now that a Phase III
clinical trial has shown Palatin Technologies Inc.'s Leutech infection
imaging agent to be effective.
Clinical-trial results released Monday showed that Leutech indicated
appendicitis in 91% of patients with the condition and ruled out
appendicitis in 96% of the patients who didn't have it.
Leutech was also faster to use. In 38% of patients, the time from the
injection of Leutech until the first positive image was as little as
four minutes, with the median time being eight minutes. Other methods
can take more than two hours.
Shares of Palatin (PLTN) rose 75 cents, or 13%, to close at $6.75
Monday.
Leutech is an antibody that is labeled with Technetium, an imaging
agent used in nuclear medicine. The injection binds to white blood
cells, which, in turn, travel to any area of infection in the body. A
scan after injection shows the concentration of white blood cells and,
as a result, the source of the infection.
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