Word: interferon
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Some of the most promising new therapies arising from recent research involve the chemical signals, or lymphokines, that regulate the immune system. These extraordinary proteins have a bewildering array of names and functions. There are, for instance, three types of interferon -- alpha, beta and gamma. Alpha alone comes in more than a dozen varieties. Interleukins are similarly prolific. "We are already up to interleukin-7 and interleukin-8," says Immunologist Lloyd Old, of the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in Manhattan, "and one can expect that we will go on from there." Scientists have so far discovered at least five...
Equally remarkable is David Chandruss, 25, of Chicago, who was found to have the disease nine years ago. He has recovered from pneumonia without the aid of medication five times. After a bout last year with two serious infections, he was put on interferon, which is supposed to boost the immune system but may cause pain. Now he is on AZT. "You have to have a cause to live for," declares Chandruss, who devotes much of his time to caring for other AIDS sufferers. He lives at a novitiate of the Alexian Brothers, a Roman Catholic order that runs...
...Yorker Marberger, the price of that faith is pain, resulting mainly from the experimental drugs he takes, that is so excruciating he must take a "pain cocktail" every four hours. Thus far he has tried interferon, aerosol pentamidine, which is used to treat deadly Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia, and AZT. He has also received dideoxycytidine, an antiviral medication. The treatment left him with tearing facial pains. Last week he was back in the hospital after a bout...
...women with more than one sexual partner, and more frequently for those who have had warts. Even when the warts disappear spontaneously or are medically removed, the underlying viral infection -- and therefore the risk of cancer -- may persist. Hoping to reduce that risk, doctors are testing the antiviral substance interferon in adults with severe warts, and efforts to produce a vaccine are also under way. But no solution is close at hand. The prospect is for another sexually transmitted epidemic that will take many years to contain...
...condoms and spermicides be used to prevent sexual transmission of AIDS. Laboratory tests show that nonoxynol-9, the active ingredient in many U.S. spermicides, can prevent the virus from reproducing. A more potent product, under development by Exovir in Great Neck, N.Y., would contain both nonoxynol- 9 and alpha interferon, a combination that compounds the killing effect. Pharmatex, a spermicide sold in Europe and Africa, also appears to inhibit the virus in the test tube...