This study was designed to evaluate the safety and effectiveness of high dose interferon, with or without prednisone pretreatment, in patients with chronic hepatitis B. Patients were randomised to two treatment groups: group I (n = 26) received six weeks of prednisone followed by a two week, drug free period, and then 10 million units (MU) of interferon alfa-2b three times weekly subcutaneously...

Regression of an HCV-associated disseminated marginal zone lymphoma under IFN-free antiviral treatment Hepatitis C virus (HCV) is prevalent in B-cell–associated lymphomas, including marginal zone and diffuse large B-cell lymphomas. 1 A step-wise model of lymphomagenesis induced by chronic antigenic stimulation and/or a direct pro-oncogenic effect of intracellular HCV proteins is a possible mech...

Chronic hepatitis B can evolve to cirrhosis and liver cancer. Interferon is the only effective treatment, for carefully selected patients, but it is very expensive. Some of the selection criteria are based on liver biopsy, an invasive, costly and painful medical procedure. Therefore, developing efficient non-invasive selection systems, could be in the patients benefit and also save money. We in...

Death-associated protein kinase (DAP-Kinase) is a novel serine/threonine kinase whose expression is required for gamma interferon-induced apoptosis. A previous study suggested that DAP-Kinase expression may be lost epigenetically in cancer cell lines, because treatment of several nonexpressing cell lines with 5-aza-2'-deoxycytidine resulted in the expression of DAP-Kinase. Using methylation-spe...

INTRODUCTION The association of human immunodeficiency virus and immune dysfunction leading to development of autoimmune markers is well described, but human immunodeficiency virus infection is relatively protective for the development of systemic lupus erythematosus. In contrast, development of systemic lupus erythematosus with hepatitis C and with interferon therapy is well described in a num...

OBJECTIVE To determine the effect of low dose interferon alfa (human lymphoblastoid interferon) on aminotransferase activities in chronic non-A non-B hepatitis. DESIGN Prospective randomised controlled parallel group study of active treatment versus no treatment carried out over 16 weeks and preceded by baseline measurements at weeks 8 and 4 and time zero. SETTING HEPATOLOGY outpatient clin...

Death-associated protein kinase (DAP-Kinase) is a novel serine/threonine kinase whose expression is required for g interferon-induced apoptosis. A previous study suggested that DAP-Kinase expression may be lost epigenetically in cancer cell lines, because treatment of several nonexpressing cell lines with 5-aza-28-deoxycytidine resulted in the expression of DAP-Kinase. Using methylation-specifi...

An interferon-stimulated response element (ISRE)/interferon regulatory element (IRE) spanning nucleotide coordinates 1091-1100 is present in the enhancer 1/X gene promoter region of the hepatitis B virus (HBV) genome. In the context of a minimal promoter element, the enhancer 1/X gene promoter ISRE/IRE was shown to be a functional regulatory site capable of mediating interferon alpha- (IFNalpha...