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Saturday, December 3, 2011

Interleukin-2 may work for GVHD and HCV.

mune-mediated diseases, two small, uncontrolled studies showed." The first study demonstrated that "interleukin-2 increased the proportion of regulatory T cells (Tregs) in all 10 patients with hepatitis C virus (HCV)-induced vasculitis and improved symptoms of vasculitis in eight, with few side effects." The study enrolled "10 patients with mixed cryoglobulinemic vasculitis who were not receiving glucocorticoid or immunosuppressant therapy (median age 58.5)." They "received one course of interleukin-2 at 1.5 million IU per day for five days, followed by three five-day courses of 3 million IU/day at weeks three, six, and nine."
        In the second study, "researchers found that daily low-dose injections of interleukin-2 appeared to help some patients by treating the side effect, known as graft-versus-host disease (GVHD)," HealthDay (12/1, Dotinga) reports. In this study, "12 of 23 patients who took the drug for eight weeks showed improvement in symptoms related to GVHD, including skin rash and other skin problems, hepatitis and inflamed lungs. The condition didn't worsen while the patients took the drug." Results of both studies are published in the Dec. 1 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.

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