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Updated: Aug 14, 2026
Determining Immune System Suppression versus CNS Protection for Pharmacological Interventions in Autoimmune Demyelination
Published on: September 12, 2016
No increase of serum autoantibodies during therapy with recombinant human interferon-beta1a in relapsing-remitting
C Colosimo1, C Pozzilli, M Frontoni
1la Clinica Neurologica, Dipartimento di Scienze Neurologiche, Università La Sapienza, Roma, Italy.
Objectives:
The present investigation was aimed at establishing whether interferon (IFN)-beta would induce the synthesis of autoantibodies in patients affected by multiple sclerosis (MS).
Materials And Methods:
The titres of different autoantibodies were measured in a group of 68 relapsing-remitting MS patients before and during treatment with human recombinant IFN-beta1a (3 MIU or 9 MIU subcutaneously 3x a week). ANA, anti-thyroid, anticardiolipin serum autoantibodies were assayed in all cases: when patients were found positive to ANA > 1 : 40, they were also tested for anti-DNA and anti-ENA antibodies.
Results:
No increase was found in autoantibodies synthesis during 6 months of r-hIFNbeta1a therapy, either at low or high dosages. The percentage of patients positive to different types of autoantibodies varied between 0 and 29%, which are values similar to those already reported in untreated MS patients.
Conclusion:
Our data indicate that the short-term use of IFN-beta1a in MS is safe in terms of the induction of humoral autoimmune responses: however, further follow-up is needed to confirm these findings during long-term treatments.
