Honolulu Advertiser, Island Life Section, Honolulu, Hawaii (808) 525-8034 - Wednesday, 13 November 1996, p. D1.
Beverly Creamer; Advertiser Staff Writer

Consider this: Ten years ago, Dr. Bruce Mills discovered that a medication called DNCB that stimulates the body to remove warts also clears up painful lesions from opportunistic infections that afflict AIDS patients. (DNCB stands for dinitrochlorobenzene.)

Now the Honolulu Medical Group dermatologist is undertaking a new clinical trial to see if the chemical will actually boost the whole immune system.

As such, he may have found a new treatment to join the arsenal against AIDS.

"Patients were reporting 'I'm gaining weight...I'm feeling better'... It looked like something worth pursuing," says Mills.

But when he first wrote and published the findings, little happened.

"It wasn't pursued," he says. Except by patients themselves in the San Francisco area, where he was practicing.

"The patients began to acquire the chemical themselves and people began treating themselves,", he said. "This has been going on for years."

In the intervening decade, a Brazilian doctor picked up on the study findings, did a trial and found that patients using DNCB did not get opportunistic infections, gained weight and didn't have problems with parasites, even without taking major AIDS drugs.

Then, two other California doctors and a Swedish doctor did the same thing.

And now Mills has embarked on the first major American study to look at this chemical in a controlled trial to see if it really can increase counts of T-cells (disease-fighting cells in the immune system) as it promises.

"We want to know if this is effective as a systemic immune booster for people with AIDS," says Mills. "When we put DNCB on the skin, we're generating a T-cell response. This is the type of response behind our immunity to tumors," he said. "A wart is a benign tumor induced by a virus. So you can apply DNCB to the skin, get it sensitized - sort of a Pavlovian response - then suddenly the immune response to the wart goes up."

Then all the warts go away - not just those that were painted.

To help explain the process, Mills says there are two arms of the immune system: the T-cell arm and the B-cell arm. T-cells are immune cell fighters that take direct action against an invader; B-cells stimulate antibodies to fight invaders.

The six-month research project began about five weeks ago and is funded by the Queen's Medical Center. Mills is looking for 46 subjects: 30 with HIV who are not taking AZT, one of the major AIDS drugs, and 16 without HIV who will serve as the control group. Those with HIV should have T-cell counts between 200 and 500. A normal T-cell count is about 1,000 or more.

Mills administers DNCB via a patch, not unlike those used for nicotine withdrawal and the treatment of motion sickness. Where ever the DNCB patch is placed, it sensitizes the body, causing a rash much like poison ivy. That, in turn, stimulates the immune system to fight the surface under the patch.

After the body has been sensitized, the immune system will attack the invading virus - even in parts of the body where the DNCB was never applied. Overall, the T-cell count will go up, Mills hopes, and the patient will become healthier and more able to withstand opportunistic infections that accompany AIDS.

For more information about the trial, call the Honolulu Medical group at 544-2530. Ask for Carol.

Copyright 1996/The Honolulu Advertiser. Reproduced with permission. Reproduction of this article (other than one copy for personal reference) must be cleared through the Permissions Desk, Honolulu Advertiser, Island Life Section, Honolulu, Hawaii (808) 525-8034.
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