Prior to the production of human gamma interferon using recombinant DNA technology, it had been producedmainly upon mitogenic induction of lymphocytes in very low amounts, which evidently hamperedits characterization and its medical applications. The recombinant gamma interferons produced in largerquantities in prokaryotic systems retain their biological activities, and can be...

A 60-year-old woman, who had been diagnosed with and treated for Vogt-Koyanagi-Harada (VKH) disease 17 years before, was receiving pegylated interferon-? and ribavirin therapy for chronic hepatitis C virus. Three weeks after the start of therapy, she complained of visual blurring, eye pain, and an increased hearing loss. Based on a slit lamp and fundus examination, she was diagnosed with a rela...

Sézary syndrome is a cutaneous T-cell lymphoma characterized by the triad of erythroderma, generalized lymphadenopathy, and the presence of Sézary cells in skin, lymph nodes and peripheral blood. A 59-year-old Chinese female presented with erythroderma, palmoplantar keratoderma and enlarged right axillary and epitrochlear lymph nodes. Staging investigations showed extensive involvement of perip...

OBJECTIVES The objective of this study was to determine the incidence of retinopathy in chronic hepatitis C patients treated with Pegylated interferon alpha 2a and Ribavirin. METHODS This descriptive case series study was conducted in Medical Unit II of the Jinnah Hospital Lahore from September 2012 to February 2013. One hundred chronic hepatitis C patients visiting Medical Unit II outpatient...

In 2004, we reported the short-term results of a multicentric, phase 2 study of imatinib 400 mg daily and pegylated interferon-alpha in the treatment of 76 early chronic phase Philadelphia-positive chronic myeloid leukemia patients. In this report, we update the results with an observation time of five years. After two years of treatment, all but 10 patients (13%) had discontinued pegylated int...

Impressive gains have been made in the treatment of chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection during the past decade. As the treatment for chronic hepatic C has improved, the question has arisen as to whether patients who failed previous HCV treatment regimens should be retreated. Several recent studies involving retreatment have established that a small but significant increase in sustained vi...

BACKGROUND Toll-like receptor (TLR)3 gene variants may correlate with clinical significance of chronic viral infections including HBV. We aimed to investigate the expression of TLR3 in peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) and liver cells of chronic hepatitis B (CHB) patients and its response to pegylated interferon or nucleoside analogue therapy. METHODS We consecutively enrolled 127 CH...

BACKGROUND Chronic hepatitis B (CHB) patients display Toll-like receptor 9 (TLR9)-dependent defective immune responses. We aimed to study TLR9 expression on CHB patients and its alteration during therapy. METHODS We compared TLR9 expression on fresh peripheral CD14+ monocytes from a cohort of 97 CHB patients and 35 HBsAg-negative, anti-HCV-negative controls, during pegylated interferon or ent...

Cryoglobulinaemic mononeuritis multiplex (MNM) is an extrahepatic manifestation of chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection for which interferon-based antiviral therapy is currently the treatment of choice. Rarely MNM can be associated with HCV treatment though generally in the setting of pre-existing cryoglobulinaemia and detectable HCV viraemia. We report an unusual case of de novo MNM occur...