Therapy of autoimmune diseases with high dose chemotherapy and cell therapy
Diseases include: multiple sclerosis, disseminated encephalomyelitis, systemic scleroderma, rheumatoid arthritis, exanthematous lupus erythematosus, Crohn’s disease.
Therapy principle: In case of autoimmune disease, the organism forms a cell clone that affects the tissues of the patient directly (through T cells) or indirectly (through B cells) producing antibodies. Use of the immunosuppressants helps eliminate pathological clones and leads to disease remission. After a short phase of hypoplasia of hemopoiesis, the “naïve” immune system that does not have a pathological clone leading to the damage of the target tissues, restores. It is recommended to harvest the PBMCs in this period so that later they could be used to consolidate the achieved therapeutic effect, and to regenerate the tissues that have been damaged by the previous autoimmune process. In the first case, one more course of the immunosuppressive therapy that affects both T cells and B cells is given. Then, the previously harvested PNMCs are transfused. The latter provide recovery of the reloaded and undamaged immune system, which is free from pathological clones.
Result. According to the published evidence and our own research, the 5-year survival without relapse in the patients with multiple sclerosis varies from 70 to 91% after using this method. Similarly, from 70 to 92% patients demonstrated no exacerbation of the neurological symptoms, development of new foci and/or increase of activity of the MRI detected foci for the first two years post treatment. After the therapy of exanthematous lupus erythematosus, 86% positive responses are registered, and thus the dose of steroids can be reduced at least twofold. Long-term relapse free survival is observed in 68% of the cases. In the second case, the harvested PBMCs are used after the therapy of the main disease is completed, the full remission is achieved for the regeneration of the disease-associated damages in the organs and tissues and to recover the injured functions. Both goals can be combined but require more seances of the PBMCs harvest.
