Relief for stem cell transplant patients
In a study that seems to pivot on a paradox, scientists at Harvard-affiliated Dana-Farber Cancer Institute have used an immune system stimulant as an immune system suppressor to treat a common, often debilitating side effect of donor stem cell transplantation in cancer patients. The effect, in some cases, was profound. The phase 1 study, published in the Dec. 1 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, involved allogeneic (donor) stem cell transplant patients with chronic graft-versus-host disease (GVHD), a multisystem inflammatory condition that arises when donor immune system cells launch an attack on a patient’s own tissues, leading to varied symptoms such as skin rash and thickened or scarred skin, lung inflammation, or hepatitis, among others. The patients received once-daily injections of interleukin-2 (IL-2), a drug traditionally used to spur an immune system attack, but which, at low doses, investigators had reason to believe, could have the opposite effect in this case:...