Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1984. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Associated Press - April 5, 1984
Interferon is a natural virus-fighting substance produced by the body's cells.
The researchers say their findings "can be viewed as encouraging," because in test tube experiments a substance called gamma interferon has been found to restore the disease-fighting properties of cells taken from AIDS victims. At least two medical centers have begun treating such patients with genetically engineered gamma interferon, but it is too soon to tell whether the treatment works outside the test tube.
The disorder, acquired immune deficiency syndrome, destroys the body's power to repulse even the most ordinary viruses and bacteria. Many AIDS patients become overwhelmed by everyday microbes, and it is these "opportunistic infections" that often kill them. Vital Link Found Missing
Researchers at Cornell University Medical College have found that when challenged by germ toxins, AIDS victims' blood does not produce gamma interferon, a vital link in the body's intricate defenses against disease.
"The failure to produce this molecule may explain why patients with AIDS are vulnerable to, and unable to control, and die from opportunistic infections," they wrote in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine.
But in the test tube, doctors found they can "rearm" immune systems by giving them extra doses of this form of interferon.
"It holds the promise of being able to bypass the defunct immune system entirely and deliver what we think is the key product that you've got to have to be able to kill most of the organisms that infect these patients," Dr. Henry W. Murray, who directed the research at Cornell, said in an interview.
In February, Dr. Jerome Groopman and colleagues at New England Deaconess Hospital in Boston began treating AIDS patients with gamma interferon. Optimism About Utility
"Dr. Murray's work further substantiates the rationale for the use of gamma interferon in AIDS patients, and we're very optimistic about its ultimate clinical utility," Dr. Groopman said.
Last month doctors also started using it at San Francisco General Hospital on patients with Kaposi's sarcoma, a cancer that is common among AIDS victims.
In healthy people, gamma interferon is produced by white blood cells called helper T cells. However, AIDS victims have far fewer of these T cells than do healthy people, and the ones that remain do not work right.
Ordinarily, these helper T cells produce gamma interferon when they are exposed to germs. This substance activates other blood cells called macrophages. And they, in turn, release hydrogen peroxide and kill the microbes.
When macrophages from the AIDS victims were given extra doses of gamma interferon, they functioned normally. So far, more than 3,500 Americans have been stricken with AIDS, and more than 1,300 of them have died. Most of the victims are male homosexuals or drug abusers, but hemophiliacs, Haitians and people getting ordinary blood tranfusions also face an increased risk.
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