It's in your hands - Dupuytren's

Ok so as I promised I am going to have a look at a thing from 

Pfizer called "it is in your hands". 

There reason that I am looking at this is of course because Dupuytren's is related to Ledderhose and things that help that might be able to help this. Why are Pfizer involved? Well of course this is because they have the rights behind Xiaflex/Xiapex which is a collagenase injection that can be used to help break down the cords in Dupuytren's Contracture and therefore help to restore normal function of the hand. I have covered it a little bit previously in this post here - Xiaflex in cells. 

So what is in your hands??? 

This is the logo that Pfizer are using, all rights are theirs of course and I am putting it here to promote their site. Though I do not have any affiliation to them or anything like that.  

Well Pfizer are on a mission to try and raise awareness of Dupuytren's and as such there is the website - Dupuytren's Disease - It is in your hands which has some information on Dupuytren's disease. Of course this does include treatment options and to be fair there is a good deal of information there however under non-surgical options they are of course putting Collagenase injections as the best choice. 

They also have a stories section where they have video stories from a variety of patients with Dupuytren's disease and they discuss all of the different treatments options that they have had. This is really good to get out there and hopefully it will help patients in the future. 

They also have a very useful FAQ and a useful links bit where they link to the International Dupuytren's Society. 

So I guess this site is useful for anyone with Dupuytren's or indeed anyone looking to find out more about Dupuytren's disease, it has lots of stories where you can learn how people are coping with it and what they have gone through but at no stage is there any mention of Ledderhose disease or peyronie's disease. Now I know that Xiaflex has not been shown to be useful but surely under the FAQ they could have it has something to look out for. I think the fact they have not mention them is a disgrace as awareness of Ledderhose and peyronie's disease is probably less than Dupuytren's and what harm would it do to stick it in there? Anyway it is a good site and does have lots of good info. 

I actually find the omission of peyronie's disease particularly odd given that this morning I also got a news alert through Google Scholar saying that there is a new paper coming out on the use of Collagenase injections for the treatment of peyronie's disease. The abstract can be found here Sexual dysfunction: C. histolyticum collagenase effective against Peyronie

So as part of this scheme they have also released a bunch of videos which are all available on YouTube, but you can not make comments so not linking to here or complaining about the lack of any mention of Ledderhose disease. 

Videos: 

I am just going to embed one of these videos but I urge you to visit YouTube and view some more of them as they are very interesting and hopefully will help to raise awareness. 

I think that the collection of videos really do help to increase the amount of understanding that some people might have into not only Dupuytren's as a whole but the way in which it can change everyday life. I do think that they could be better, they do only look at one person and from what I can see there is only proper contracture in one finger, the little finger, but I might be wrong. 

Summary: 

Hopefully all of this helps people to know about Dupuytren's and maybe if they know about Dupuytren's then they might begin to learn about Ledderhose. Maybe this will help gain money for research into these diseases that might one day offer a cure and I am sure the this is something that not only the patients but hopefully also the likes of Pfizer are interested in.