CAR Immunotherapy for the treatment of infectious diseases: a systematic review.

Immunotherapy treatments aim to modulate the host's immune response to either mitigate it in inflammatory/autoimmune disease or enhance it against infection or cancer. Among different immunotherapies reaching clinical application during the last years, chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) immunotherapy has emerged as an effective treatment for cancer where different CAR T cells have already been approved. Yet their use against infectious diseases is an area still relatively poorly explored, albeit with tremendous potential for research and clinical application. Infectious diseases represent a global health challenge, with the escalating threat of antimicrobial resistance underscoring the need for alternative therapeutic approaches. This review aims to systematically evaluate the current applications of CAR immunotherapy in infectious diseases and discuss its potential for future applications. Notably, CAR cell therapies, initially developed for cancer treatment, are gaining recognition as potential remedies for infectious diseases. The review sheds light on significant progress in CAR T cell therapy directed at viral and opportunistic fungal infections.

[Intractable diarrhoea and severe weight loss by roflumilast]. / Diarrea intratable y pérdida ponderal acusada secundarias a roflumilast.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: Roflumilast is a recently marketed drug, indicated for maintenance treatment of severe chronic obstructive pulmonary disease associated with chronic bronchitis in adult patients with a history of frequent exacerbations as add on to bronchodilator treatment. MATERIAL AND METHODS: The safety data of this drug have always been subjected to controversy and concerns. The Food and Drug Administration rejected the drug after the first evaluation, asking the company to clarify the adverse reactions during the investigation process, the European Medicines Agency approved the drug including a Risk Management Plan, designed to promote a safe use of the drug. RESULTS: During the first months after the marketing process, the Spanish Pharmacovigilance System has already been acquainted of several adverse events notifications; therefore, these patients may be closely monitored, mainly because of digestive and psychiatric disorders. CONCLUSIONS: Here we report the case of a female patient who showed a serious digestive clinical profile and a severe weight loss, more than 25% of her initial weight, when a treatment with roflumilast was started. The suspicion of a side effect as the cause of the reported clinical profile and its resolution required 3 hospital admissions.