Cancer Treatment Today » Immune System

Immunoglobulin for Gullain-Barre Syndrome

M Levin, MD — Sun, 14 Jul 2013 22:05:45 +0000

Guillain-Barr syndrome is a disorder in which the body’s immune system attacks part of the peripheral nervous system. The onset can be very rapid or take few days to few weeks. Symptoms are weakness or tingling sensations in the legs. Sometimes, the weakness and abnormal sensations spread to the arms and upper body and progress to paralysis. There is no known cure for Guillain-Barr syndrome, but therapies can lessen the severity of the illness and accelerate the recovery in most patients. Often life support is required until the patient begins to recover. As such, any treatment that can speed recovery is valuable. Currently, plasmapheresis and high-dose immunoglobulin therapy are most often used.

Both plasma exchange (PE) therapy and intravenous immune globulin (IVIG) have proven effective for Guillain-Barr syndrome (GBS). They are both thought todecrease autoantibody production and increase removal of immune complexes. Both have been shown to shorten recovery time by as much as 50%. IVIG is easier to administer and has fewer complications than PE. and is usually the initial treatment.

Randomized trials in severe disease show that IVIG started within 4 weeks from onset hastens recovery as much as plasma exchange. Combination therapy of both, does not improve outcomes or shortened illness duration over one or the other.

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Using Vistide on the skin or mouth

M Levin, MD — Fri, 09 Nov 2012 13:20:02 +0000

Vistide is used intravenously but sometiems pateints are not able to take it intravenously because of kidney disease or otehr complications. Some patients are resistant to toehr therapies. The FDA says: “THE SAFETY AND EFFICACY OF VISTIDE (cidofovir) HAVE NOT BEEN ESTABLISHED FOR TREATMENT OF OTHER CMV INFECTIONS (SUCH AS PNEUMONITIS OR GASTROENTERITIS), CONGENITAL OR NEONATAL CMV DISEASE, OR CMV DISEASE IN NON-HIV-INFECTED INDIVIDUALS.” This is a water-soluble drug and should to be absorbable by mouth, although no oral formulations are currently available. It can be prepared by a pharmacist from the intravenous form but such formulations are very expensive (approximately $65 US per gram of 3% cidofovir cream) or it can be compounded as a 1% solution. There are case reports of using these preparations for condyloma acumina, veruca vulgaris, laryngeal papillomatosis, Kaposi’s sarcoma, pox virus infections and herpetic infections. Currently, there a a number of case reports and series that support this drug, as well as two Phase II studies, one randomized. 1%, 3% and 5% solutions have shown activity.

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ALCAT Testing

M Levin, MD — Tue, 19 Jun 2012 17:38:43 +0000

The antigen leukocyte cellular antibody test (ALCAT) is a proprietary test created and promoted by American Medical Testing Laboratories and Cell Science Systems, of Deerfield Beach, Florida. It markets this test as a screening test for adverse reactions to specific foods, food additives, food colorings and other chemicals. The test has been reformulated several times. It is generally considered to be an unproven test. “These results have been shown to not be reproducible, give different results when duplicate samples are analyzed blindly, don’t correlate with those from conventional testing, and ‘diagnose’ food hypersensitivity in subjects with conditions where food allergy is not considered to play a pathogenic role.” A recent supportive study is also open to being characterized in this way.

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