| New Avian flu Treatment -
04-03-2006, 01:10 AM
Researchers in Stockholm, Sweden, and Hong Kong say H5N1 -- an avian flu subtype -- patients have similar symptoms and post-mortem features to patients with an immune disorder called haemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis (HLH). HLH patients have too many infection-fighting white blood cells, which can accumulate in healthy tissue and damage various organs. The chemotherapy drug etoposide is used to treat HLH. It helps kill the excess immune cells.
Professor Jan-Inge Henter, M.D., Ph.D., of Karolinska Hospital, Stockholm, Sweden, says, "We would welcome WHO [World Health Organization] to consider a platform for the undertaking of clinical trials based on a modified HLH protocol (including etoposide and corticosteroids) in addition to supportive and antiviral therapy [for patients infected by H5N1]."
Even though chemotherapy for avian flu may be a big jump, the authors say it could still work, especially because it is very effective in decreasing mortality in HLH disease associated with severe infection by another virus, the Epstein-Barr virus.
The scientists emphasize this is only a theory, and the treatment has not yet been tested in patients infected by avian flu.
Angel xenoMED | NDR “Nothing brings me more happiness than helping people in the society. It is a goal and an essential part of my life - a kind of destiny.”
Last edited by Angel : 04-03-2006 at 01:18 AM.
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