Interferon-alpha (IFN-α) has been used in systemic treatment for metastatic renal cell carcinoma (mRCC). IFN-α has at least 14 subtypes, each of which has different biological activity. There have been reports that mRCC resistant to an IFN-α treatment responded to another IFN-α subtype. This study was performed to evaluate the effectiveness of alternation of different IFN-α subtypes for mRCC th...

BACKGROUND The purpose of this study was to identify a real-world US population having undergone surgery for malignant melanoma and describe treatment patterns, health care resource utilization, and costs for patients who subsequently received interferon alfa-2b (IFN) therapy or other standard of care chemotherapies. METHODS A retrospective cohort study was conducted using administrative clai...

It is unknown whether peginterferon (PEG-IFN) add-on to entecavir (ETV) leads to more HBsAg decline compared to PEG-IFN monotherapy or combination therapy, and whether ETV therapy may prevent HBsAg increase after PEG-IFN cessation. We performed a post hoc analysis of 396 HBeAg-positive patients treated for 72 weeks with ETV + 24 weeks PEG-IFN add-on from week 24 to 48 (add-on, n = 85), 72 weeks...

Immunotherapy, consisting mainly of interferon (IFN) therapy, has been used to treat renal cell carcinoma refractory to radiotherapy and chemotherapy ever since IFN was reported to be effective against renal cell carcinoma in 1982. The efficacy of IFN is low, with the response rate being only about 20% and the method and duration of its administration have yet to be established. Using viable tu...

Interferons (IFNs) initiate their effects by interacting with specific high-affinity cell surface receptors, but little is known about the physiology of IFN receptor interaction in vivo. Treatment of patients suffering from hairy cell leukemia (HCL) with human recombinant alpha IFN results in significant tumor regression, with clinical improvement in a high percentage of cases. To investigate a...

OBJECTIVE Although present treatment programs for renal cell carcinoma (RCC) typically involve molecular-targeting drugs, interferon-alpha (IFN-alpha) remains an important therapeutic drug for this cancer. METHODS We evaluated the effect of adjuvant therapy in 508 patients with RCC following curative surgery. Patients were classified into one of the two categories based on the duration and th...

Interferon (IFN) is effective in treating adults as well as children with chronic hepatitis C. We investigated the efficacy of IFN therapy in 13 children with underlying acute leukemia who had chronic hepatitis C (age range, 5 to 17 years; mean age, 9.9 years). Natural IFN- alpha was administered at a dose of 0.1 mega unit (MU)/kg (maximum dose, 6.0 MU) daily for 2 weeks and then three times pe...

Background: Several factors have been related to response to pegylated interferon (PEG-IFN) in chronic hepatitis B (CHB). The occurrence of anti-IFN antibodies is associated with non-response to PEG-IFN in chronic hepatitis C. This study investigated the association between anti-IFN antibodies and response to PEG-IFN in CHB. Methods: Presence of anti-IFN antibodies was assessed at baseline and ...

PURPOSE A phase III trial of bevacizumab combined with interferon alfa-2a (IFN) showed significant improvements in progression-free survival (PFS) in metastatic renal cell carcinoma (mRCC). Here, we report overall survival (OS) data. PATIENTS AND METHODS Six hundred forty-nine patients with previously untreated mRCC were randomly assigned to receive bevacizumab (10 mg/kg every 2 weeks) plus I...