Immunologic Therapies Health Article

Definition

Immunologic therapy is the treatment of disease using medicines that boost the body's natural immune response.

Purpose

Immunologic therapy is used to improve the immune system's natural ability to fight diseases such as cancer, hepatitis and AIDS. These drugs may also be used to help the body recover from immunosuppression resulting from treatments such as chemotherapy or radiation therapy.

Description

Most drugs in this category are synthetic versions of substances produced naturally in the body. In their natural forms, these substances help defend the body against disease. For example, aldesleukin (Proleukin) is an artificially-made form of interleukin-2, which helps white blood cells work. Aldesleukin is administered to patients with kidney cancers and skin cancers that have spread to other parts of the body. Filgrastim (Neupogen) and sargramostim (Leukine) are versions of natural substances called colony stimulating factors, which drive the bone marrow to make new white blood cells. Another type of drug, epoetin (Epogen, Procrit), is a synthetic version of human erythropoietin that stimulates the bone marrow to make new red blood cells. Thrombopoietin stimulates the production of platelets, disk-shaped bodies in the blood that are important in clotting. Interferons are substances the body produces naturally using immune cells to fight infections and tumors. The synthetic interferons carry brand names such as Alferon, Roferon or Intron A. Some of the interferons that are currently in use as drugs are Recombinant Interferon Alfa-2a, Recombinant Interferon Alfa-2b, interferon alfa-n1 and Interferon Alfa-n3. Alfa interferons are used to treat hairy cell leukemia, malignant melanoma and AIDs-related Kaposi's sarcoma. In addition interferons are also used for other conditions such as laryngeal papillomatosis, genital warts and certain types of hepatitis.