RESUMO
Severe complicated measles has a high mortality rate and no specific treatment. Ten patients with complicated measles - 9 infants with respiratory failure and a 15 year old boy with encephalitis - received immunotherapy with Non-specific Transfer Factor (NTF). The patients had variable degrees of undernourishment and were severely ill when immunotherapy was started. 8/9 cases with respiratory failure were cured. One died of bronchoaspiration while recovering from the measles. The case with encephalitis showed no neurological sequelae two weeks after receiving the last dose of NTF. Treatment of complicated measles with NTF in these patients seemed very effective and deserves further trial.
Assuntos
Imunoterapia , Sarampo/terapia , Fator de Transferência/uso terapêutico , Adolescente , Infecções Bacterianas/complicações , Candidíase Bucal/complicações , Varicela/complicações , Pré-Escolar , Encefalite Viral/terapia , Encefalite Viral/virologia , Feminino , Humanos , Imunidade Celular , Lactente , Masculino , Sarampo/complicações , Meningoencefalite/terapia , Meningoencefalite/virologia , Distúrbios Nutricionais/complicações , Insuficiência Respiratória/terapia , Insuficiência Respiratória/virologiaRESUMO
Fifty patients with various hyperplastic and malignant lymphoproliferative diseases were investigated for evidence of human herpesvirus-6 infection. Virus DNA and antigen expression was investigated in lymph node biopsies by in situ hybridization and immunohistology and was correlated with data of immunophenotyping. Supplemental immunoglobulin- and T cell receptor gene rearrangement studies were used to support the classification of the proliferative lymphoid lesion. Elevated numbers of cells carrying HHV-6 DNA and/or antigens were found in cases of Hodgkin's lymphoma and follicular center cell non-Hodgkin's lymphoma as well as atypical polyclonal lymphoproliferation (APL), yet not in reactive lymphoid hyperplasia and in most other lymphomas. Immunophenotyping showed that virus -infected cells were primarily lympho-histiocytic elements, less frequently Hodgkin's- and Reed-Sternberg cells, and not malignant B lymphocytes as in follicular center cell lymphomas. This suggests that the virus is rather not the causative oncogen in these cases, yet does not exclude a cocarcinogenic effect of it during the development and ths course of uncontrolled lymphoproliferation.