Immunosuppression and the rheumatic diseases

Ignorance of the basic nature of rheumatoid arthritis precludes the introduction of rational schemes for using cytotoxic drugs. It is still plausible that the autoimmune and other immunological abnormalities which accompany this disease are the secondary effects of persistent antigen, for example, related to microbial infections. In this event, cytotoxic drugs may diminish the inflammatory response but their effects on immune responses would be irrelevant or even undesirable. Should rheumatoid arthritis prove to be a primary immunoproliferative disorder, cytotoxic drugs may prove to be of value not because of their conventional immunosuppressive effects but because of their selective action on the proliferating cells. Indeed, current evidence suggests that these drugs enhance rather than depress conventional immune responses, at least in the doses given to patients with rheumatic disorders.