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Query: UMLS:C0001175 (AIDS)
 120,706 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

Lymphokines represent a new group of substances that have engendered increasing interest in the context of cancer therapy. They are products of the lymphoid system that can now be produced in pure form as a consequence of advances in gene cloning technology. alpha-Interferon has been tested in clinical trials for several years, and has been found effective in the treatment of patients with hairy cell leukemia, chronic myelogenous leukemia, Kaposi's sarcoma (AIDS) and renal cell cancer. Interleukin-2 has shown impressive antitumor activity in patients with melanoma or renal cell cancer, particularly in combination with lymphokine-activated killer cells, although at very high doses with correspondingly severe toxicity. The clinical testing of tumor necrosis factor is in an early stage. The introduction of this class of agents has opened new perspectives for cancer therapy.
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PMID:[Interferons, interleukin-2 and tumor necrosis factor. New approaches to cancer therapy]. 243 34

An overview of the immune system is presented, and the pathogenesis, transmission, diagnostic tests, diagnosis, immunotherapy, and vaccine development for human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) are reviewed. More than 42,000 cases of acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) have now been reported in the United States, and an additional 250,000 cases are expected by 1991. The immunopathogenesis of HIV infection involves both cellular and humoral components of the immune system, with a characteristic depletion of helper T lymphocytes, impaired delayed hypersensitivity, and polyclonal B-cell activation. Monocytes and macrophages are also infected, and these cells provide a transport mechanism into the central nervous system. HIV is transmitted primarily by sexual, blood, and perinatal mechanisms. Enzyme-linked immunosorbent and Western blot assays are used in diagnostic tests, and diagnosis of AIDS is based on the presence of secondary infection or tumor at least moderately indicative of cellular immune deficiency in the absence of predisposing factors. Three approaches are being tested for treating HIV infection: immunomodulators, vaccines, and antiviral agents. Immunomodulators--including interferons, interleukin-2, immune reconstitution with bone-marrow transplantation and lymphocyte transfusions, transfer factor, granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor, inosine pranobex (isoprinosine), and naltrexone--are being tested with no great successes. Various approaches to vaccine development, including genetically engineered subunit proteins, synthetic peptides, and infectious recombinant viruses, are being considered. Primary immune responses do result from at least one vaccine. Future studies will evaluate combination approaches to therapy. HIV infections confront the health-care system with a serious challenge. It is too early to assess the effectiveness of the various therapeutic strategies for immune deficiencies caused by HIV.
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PMID:Current concepts in clinical therapeutics: immunologic treatment of human immunodeficiency virus infections. 244 17

We now have a basis for a more rational approach to rapid evaluation and development of antiviral drugs by screening for activity in vitro, testing for toxicity and efficacy in animals, and clinical testing in humans. Acyclovir is a prototype of this improved process. Interferon has a beneficial effect against CMV infection in renal transplant patients and has promising results in the treatment of papillomas and rhinovirus infections. It does not seem to be as effective against genital herpes or varicella zoster as acyclovir. Ribavirin is effective against respiratory syncytial virus infections and Lassa fever. Varicella-zoster virus is highly sensitive to bromovinyl deoxyuridine in vitro. Phosphonoformate is effective in herpes simplex in animals but of little clinical benefit topically in human recurrent A2 herpes. Zidovudine may decrease mortality rates and infectious complications in patients with acquired immunodeficiency syndrome. DHPG (9-(1,3-dihydroxy-2-propoxymethyl]guanine is useful in treatment of cytomegalovirus and infection in immunocompromised patients. The prodrug of acyclovir results in high blood levels of acyclovir and shows promise in the treatment of varicella-zoster infections. Many halogenated pyrimidine nucleoside analogs are being developed. Buciclovir is another acyclic guanosine analog effective against herpes simplex virus in vitro. 2'-nor-cyclic guanosine monophosphate has a broad antiviral spectrum of action. Interleukin-2 is being investigated. Combined therapies of two or more antiviral drugs or antiviral drugs and other treatments are being studied.
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PMID:Promising new antiviral drugs. 244 52

The Fairfield Hospital experience with isolation of HIV from peripheral blood leucocytes, cerebrospinal fluid and semen is described. To date HIV has been isolated from single specimens of blood from 45% of patients with AIDS, 35% of patients with lymphadenopathy syndrome AIDS-related complex or ARC and 14% of asymptomatic antibody positive individuals. HIV was recovered from peripheral blood leucocytes in the presence of phytohemagglutinin and interleukin-2. The presence of virus in the supernatant fluid was detected using reverse transcriptase and immunofluorescence assays. Supernatants with borderline activity were confirmed by infection of a continuous cell line.
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PMID:Isolation of HIV from Australian patients with AIDS, AIDS related conditions and healthy antibody positive individuals. 245 95

We describe here several African isolates of HIV, compare them to U.S.-European prototype isolates and to each other, correlate the number of isolates with serological results, and provide insights into the disease spectrum associated with HIV infection in Africa. Three of 25 healthy Zairian donors and 54 of 87 Zairian patients selected for specific pathology and hospitalized in the internal medicine department of the University Clinic of Kinshasa, Zaire, were HIV positive over a six month period in 1985 either by serum antibody (42 cases) or virus isolation (40 cases). The virus positive cases showed a decrease in number of T4 cells and interleukin-2 (IL2) production by mononuclear cells. Restriction endonuclease analysis of HIV sequences from these isolates showed that genomic diversity is also observed in the Zairian isolates but closely related viruses could also be found, similar to the spectrum of diversity among isolates obtained from the U.S. and Europe. A number of isolates (12 of 40) were obtained from serum antibody negative adults. These results are difficult to explain by viral antigenic diversity alone since hybridization with a HTLV-III-B (clone BH10) probe under stringent conditions indicated an overall high degree of relatedness. Rather, these results indicate that some African HIV infected patients fail to make detectable antibodies to HIV or the antibodies were bound in immune complexes not detectable by current techniques.
AIDS Res Hum Retroviruses 1987
PMID:Genomic diversity of Zairian HIV isolates: biological characteristics and clinical manifestation of HIV infection. 245 28

Although the management of patients with human immunodeficiency virus infections has focused on the treatment of opportunistic infections, or acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS)-related cancers in end stages of the disease, therapies now aim at preventing the natural progression of the underlying disease. In addition to zidovudine many investigational drugs are proposed to treat AIDS-related complex patients. Most of these therapies can be divided into two major groups: (1) The first group includes agents with antiretroviral properties: nucleoside analogues, such as 2'-3'-dideoxycytidine and ribavirin, suramin, antimoniotungstate (heteropolyanion-23), foscarnet (phosphonoformate), interferons, peptide T, castanospermine, dextran sulfate, AL721, or ampligen. (2) The second group aims to restore the defective immune system; it includes thymosin (thymopentin), interleukin-2, cyclosporine, plasmapheresis, bone marrow transplantation, inosine, sodium diethyldithiocarbamate, methionine-enkephalin and carrisyn. At present, no drug other than zidovudine has proved as monotherapy to lengthen survival of human immunodeficiency virus-infected patients.
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PMID:Antiviral drugs other than zidovudine and immunomodulating therapies in human immunodeficiency virus infection. An overview. 245 13

Several of the cytokines that regulate the immune system have been tested for efficacy in the clinical setting. Of these, interleukin-2 shows particular potential for antitumor therapy when used in combination with autologous lymphokine-activated killer cells; the interferons have proved effective in the treatment of certain viral diseases and malignancies, particularly those of hematologic origin; and the colony-stimulating factors show great promise for treatment of diseases associated with bone marrow dysfunction. Heterologous monoclonal antibodies have proved effective in control of acute allograft rejection and prevention of graft versus host disease by selective elimination of cell types. Anti-idiotype antibodies are being investigated for their potential as vaccines. Many synthetic compounds possess immunomodulatory properties; one of these, inosiplex, may prove effective in enhancing immune function in patients with immune deficiencies such as AIDS.
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PMID:Therapeutic immunomodulation. 246 56

The only animal that can be reproducibly infected with HIV, and that thus provides an experimental system for testing the effectiveness of prototype vaccines, is the chimpanzee. We compared proliferative responses to HIV and to vaccinia virus (VV) antigens of lymphocytes taken at various times from chimpanzees vaccinated with recombinant VV expressing different HIV genes. Animals were immunized with the original VV strain, as control, or with constructs expressing gp160 (VV160) given exclusively or in combination with one or two other constructs producing p25 (VV25), F/3'-orf (VVF), or the human interleukin-2 (IL-2) gene, which was included in an attempt to amplify immune responses. Irrespective of the HIV gene utilized, lymphocyte proliferation to HIV was usually weak and rapidly decreased after each inoculation, contrasting with strong and sustained responses to VV. Lack of adequate recall reactivity after challenge with fixed autologous lymphocytes expressing VV-produced HIV antigens indicated that vaccination resulted only in low levels of HIV-specific memory cell priming. The use of IL-2-producing VV did not lead to increased responsiveness. Reactivity to soluble purified gp160, but not to p25, could be detected in PBL from animals that had received both VV160 and VV25, while immunization with VVF resulted in a significant response to this protein in one of two animals. The transient nature of T cell reactivity to HIV might explain why, in similar studies, chimpanzees were not protected from infection with live HIV.
AIDS Res Hum Retroviruses 1989 Feb
PMID:Cell-mediated immune proliferative responses to HIV-1 of chimpanzees vaccinated with different vaccinia recombinant viruses. 247 Mar 98

Only the recent production of large amounts of highly purified recombinant interferons has made it possible to elucidate precisely the in vitro and in vivo effect of alpha- and gamma-interferon. Interferon-alpha has significantly widened the treatment modalities for some rare tumors such as hairy cell leukemia and chronic myelogenous leukemia. Although treatment results in solid tumors are disappointing, tumor regression greater than 50% is achieved in 15-25% of patients with hypernephroma or melanoma, cancers highly resistant to cytotoxic drugs. The solid tumors must be treated with high doses of interferon-alpha which causes severe side effects. Interferon-induced toxicity can be reduced by continuous subcutaneous infusion. Interferon-alpha is also used for the treatment of viral diseases such as chronic hepatitis-B, as well as for patients with AIDS and Kaposi sarcoma. Other virus infections such as herpes simplex and condylomata acuminata represent the few established indications for treatment with interferon-beta. Interferon-gamma has distinct immunomodulatory effects in vitro and in vivo, although the clinical significance of this potential has not yet been established. Thus far the treatment results in tumor patients have been poor. The future will show if the combination of interferons with other biological response modifiers, such as tumor necrosis factor or interleukin-2, or with cytotoxic drugs, brings further progress in cancer treatment.
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PMID:[Possibilities and limits of the use of interferons in the clinic]. 247 77

We analysed the production of prostaglandin E2 (PGE2) by monocytes in 11 drug addicts with AIDS and opportunistic infections and in 13 controls. In three patients and six controls we isolated the PGE2 fraction from culture supernatants of purified monocytes (greater than 95%) incubated in medium containing (3H) arachidonic acid, using silicic acid columns. In two of three patients PGE2-fraction values (21.9 and 21.6 pmol/g protein) were significantly higher than controls (10 +/- 4). In eight AIDS patients and seven controls, PGE2 levels were determined by high-performance liquid chromatography and radioimmunoassay (HPLC and RIA). In three out of eight patients PGE2 levels were markedly higher (736, 419 and 208 pg/ml) than the mean + 2 s.d. values from controls (73 +/- 51). We tested the effect of PGE2 on the production of interleukin-2 by normal phytohemagglutinin-stimulated peripheral blood lymphocytes (PBL). There was a significant suppression of interleukin-2 production by PGE2 released from AIDS monocytes. PGE2 may be one of the factors involved in the severe immune dysfunction associated with AIDS.
AIDS 1989 Feb
PMID:Increased synthesis and production of prostaglandin E2 by monocytes from drug addicts with AIDS. 249 25


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