• Corine E Delsing, Mark S Gresnigt, Jenneke Leentjens, Frank Preijers, Florence Allantaz Frager, Matthijs Kox, Guillaume Monneret, Fabienne Venet, Chantal P Bleeker-Rovers, Frank L van de Veerdonk, Peter Pickkers, Alexandre Pachot, Bart Jan Kullberg, and Mihai G Netea.
• Department of Internal Medicine, Division of Experimental Internal Medicine, Radboud University Medical Center, Nijmegen, The Netherlands. mihai.netea@radboudumc.nl.
• Bmc Infect Dis. 2014 Jan 1; 14: 166.

BackgroundInvasive fungal infections are very severe infections associated with high mortality rates, despite the availability of new classes of antifungal agents. Based on pathophysiological mechanisms and limited pre-clinical and clinical data, adjunctive immune-stimulatory therapy with interferon-gamma (IFN-γ) may represent a promising candidate to improve outcome of invasive fungal infections by enhancing host defence mechanisms.MethodsIn this open-label, prospective case series, we describe eight patients with invasive Candida and/or Aspergillus infections who were treated with recombinant IFN-γ (rIFN-γ, 100 μg s.c., thrice a week) for 2 weeks in addition to standard antifungal therapy.ResultsRecombinant IFN-γ treatment in patients with invasive Candida and/or Aspergillus infections partially restored immune function, as characterized by an increased HLA-DR expression in those patients with a baseline expression below 50%, and an enhanced capacity of leukocytes from treated patients to produce proinflammatory cytokines involved in antifungal defence.ConclusionsThe present study provides evidence that adjunctive immunotherapy with IFN-γ can restore immune function in fungal sepsis patients, warranting future clinical studies to assess its potential clinical benefit.Trial RegistrationClinicalTrials.gov--NCT01270490.

22 keywords...

hide…