TreatmentUpdate 55 - Vol. 7, No. 1 - January 1995
Sean Hosein

Researchers in the EU and USA have noted that some patients with certain cancers have T cells that do not function properly. In one study of cancer (Hodgkins disease using non-HIV-infected subjects) researchers found that subjects with the weakest T cell response usually had the most severe complications of cancer. In such patients, cell-mediated immunity was poor. These researchers have also documented a similar trend in patients with HIV/AIDS. According to the researchers' theory, as the immune system breaks down, more chemicals are released that weaken CMI. Such chemicals include the cytokines:

- 4 (interleukin 4) - IL-6 - IL-10

These chemicals reduce the production of IL-2 and interferon-garnma and favour the growth of more B cells. Perhaps under this chemical stimulation and infection with herpes viruses it is not surprising that B cell cancers occur in AIDS. Treatment of these cancers consists of a combination of anti-cancer drugs-chemotherapy. These drugs are not always effective. Some researchers in France think that by giving patients with AIDS-related cancer anti-cytokines, their quality of life and perhaps survival may be improved, compared with similar patients not given these drugs.

REFERENCES:

1. Clerici M and Shearer G. The Thl-Th2 hypothesis of HIV infection: new insights. Immunology Today 1994;15(12):575- 581.

2. Benjamin D, Knobloch TJ and Dayton MA. Human B-cell interleukin-10: B-cell lines derived from patients with Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome and Burkitt's lmphoma constitutively secrete large quantities of IL-10. Blood 1992;80(5):1289.

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