Complicated Confusing Medical Question About Potassium Bromide

[Guest EmilyAnne]

So someone told me that potassium bromide is carcinogenic, but dogs dont don't live long enough before the cancer would usually kick in. That's why potassium bromide is allowed in dogs and not humans.

 

Now, the amount of chloride in the dog's diets greatly affects how much potassium bromide is the right dose for the dog. For a diet higher in chloride, you give a higher dose of potassium bromide, and for a diet lower in chloride, you give less.

 

One person told me it is not the size of the dose that determines toxicity, but what range of the therapuetic range the dog is at. So therefore, one dog consuming a lower chloride dog food and thus getting a smaller dose, and another dog who is consuming a higher chloride diet and thus getting a bigger dose of pottasium bromide, but both dogs are both in the exact same therapuetic range, for example, 2.4 mg/ml, is the cancer risk higher for the dog with the higher dose of potassium bromide even if he is at the same therapuetic range as the dog with the lower dose, though both have achieved the exact same level of bromide in the blood?

 

 

[ahicks51]

So someone told me that potassium bromide is carcinogenic, but dogs dont don't live long enough before the cancer would usually kick in. That's why potassium bromide is allowed in dogs and not humans.

 

Your buddy's degree in Street Pharmacology has expired.

 

From:

 

http://www.jtbaker.com/msds/englishhtml/P5587.htm

 

Potassium Bromide (7758-02-3) Known carcinogen: No Anticipated as a carcinogen: No IARC category: None

 

From:

 

http://www.atmos.umd.edu/~russ/MSDS/potassium_bromide.html

 

Carcinogenicity: CAS# 7758-02-3: Not listed by ACGIH, IARC, NIOSH, NTP, or OSHA.

 

As to why it's not used in humans: From Wikipedia:

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potassium_bromide

 

"Medical and Veterinary

 

The anticonvulsant properties of potassium bromide were first noted by Sir Charles Locock at a meeting of the Royal Medical and Chirurgical Society in 1857. Bromide can be regarded as the first effective medication for epilepsy. At the time, it was commonly thought that epilepsy was caused by masturbation. Locock noted that bromide calmed sexual excitement and thought this was responsible for his success in treating seizures. There would not be a better drug for epilepsy until phenobarbital in 1912. It was often said the British Army laced the soldiers' tea with bromide to quell sexual arousal, however this is likely to be an urban legend and similar stories were also told about a number of substances.[1]

 

Potassium bromide is used to treat epilepsy in dogs, either as first-line treatment or in addition to phenobarbital when the seizures are not adequately controlled with phenobarbital alone. Use of bromide in cats is limited because it carries a substantial risk of causing lung inflammation (pneumonitis) in this species.

 

Potassium bromide is not approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for use in humans to control seizures. In Germany it continues to be approved for use as an antiepileptic drug for humans, particularly children and adolescents. These indications include severe forms of generalized tonic-clonic seizures, early-childhood-related Grand-Mal-seizures, and also severe myoclonic seizures during childhood. Adults who have reacted positively to the drug during childhood/adolescence may continue treatment. KBr is sold under the brand name Dibro-Be mono® (RX-only). When used for proper indications it shows promising results. The drug has almost complete bioavailability and an extremely long half-life of 6 weeks. One tablet contains 850 mg of potassium bromide. Potassium bromide is not known to interfere with the absorption or excretion of any other anticonvulsant.

 

The therapeutic index is very small for bromide. As with other antiepileptics, sometimes even therapeutic doses give rise to intoxication. Often indistinguishable from 'expected' side-effects, these include:

 

* Loss of appetite, nausea/emesis, lethargy, propensity to sleep during the daytime, depression, loss of concentration and memory, confusion, headache, and

 

* Bromism (central reactions reaching from somnolence to coma, cachexia, exicosis, loss of reflexes or pathologic reflexes, clonic seizures, tremor, ataxia, loss of neural sensitivity, paresis, papillar edema of the eyes, abnormal speech, cerebral edema, delirium, aggressiveness, psychoses)

 

* Acne-form dermatitis and other forms of skin disease may also be seen, as well as mucous hypersecretion in the lungs. Asthma and rhinitis may worsen. Rarely, tongue disorder, aphten, bad breath, and obstipation occur."

 

In a nutshell, because it's already been discovered (and therefore unpatentable), no drug company is willing to come forward and spend the big bucks on safety testing to market the stuff for use in humans.

 

The concerns with respect to carcinogenicity may be either purely synthetic, or they may have been thinking about potassium bromATE, or perhaps other salts of bromine- some of which are suspected of being carcinogens.

[Guest EmilyAnne]

AH!!!! Thank you!!! *whew* Good to know!