Sodium aurothiomalate (INN, known in the United States as gold sodium thiomalate) is a gold compound that is used for its immunosuppressive anti-rheumatic effects.[2][3] Along with an orally-administered gold salt, auranofin, it is one of only two gold compounds currently employed in modern medicine.[4]
Medical uses
It is primarily given once or twice weekly by intramuscular injection for moderate-severe rheumatoid arthritis. It has also proven to be effective in treating tuberculosis.[5]
Reports of favorable use of the compound were published in France in 1929 by Jacques Forestier.[9] The use of gold salts was then a controversial treatment and was not immediately accepted by the international community. Success was found in the treatment of Raoul Dufy's joint pain by the use of gold salts in 1940; "(the treatment) brought in a few weeks such a spectacular sense of healing, that Dufy ... boasted of again having the ability to catch a tram on the move."[10]
Along with aurothioglucose, sodium aurothiomalate was discontinued in the United States, leaving auranofin as the only gold salt remaining on the U.S. market.[when?][citation needed]
^Benedek TG (January 2004). "The history of gold therapy for tuberculosis". Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences. 59 (1): 50–89. doi:10.1093/jhmas/jrg042. PMID15011812. S2CID37436710.
^ abcRossi S, ed. (2013). Australian Medicines Handbook (2013 ed.). Adelaide: The Australian Medicines Handbook Unit Trust. ISBN978-0-9805790-9-3.
^Lamboley C (December 6, 2010). "Deux rhumatisants au soleil du Midi : Renoir et Dufy" [Two rheumatic in the Midi sun: Renoir and Dufy] (PDF). Académie des Sciences et Lettres de Montpellier (in French). Montpellier. Retrieved July 7, 2015.