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Acute disseminated encephalomyelitis (ADEM), or acute demyelinating encephalomyelitis, is a rare autoimmune disease marked by a sudden, widespread attack of inflammation in the brain and spinal cord. As well as causing the brain and spinal cord to become inflamed, ADEM also attacks the nerves of the central nervous system and damages their myelin insulation, which, as a result, destroys the white matter. The cause is often a trigger such as from viral infection or vaccinations.
Multiplesclerosis (MS) is the most common demyelinating disease, in which the insulating covers of nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord are damaged. This damage disrupts the ability of parts of the nervous system to transmit signals, resulting in a range of signs and symptoms, including physical, mental, and sometimes psychiatric problems. Specific symptoms can include double vision, blindness in one eye, muscle weakness, and trouble with sensation or coordination. MS takes several forms, with new symptoms either occurring in isolated attacks or building up over time. In the relapsing forms of MS, between attacks, symptoms may disappear completely, although some permanent neurological problems often remain, especially as the disease advances.
In immunology, autoimmunity is the system of immune responses of an organism against its own healthy cells, tissues and other normal body constituents. Any disease resulting from this type of immune response is termed an "autoimmune disease". Prominent examples include celiac disease, post-infectious IBS, diabetes mellitus type 1, Henoch–Schönlein purpura (HSP) sarcoidosis, systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), Sjögren syndrome, eosinophilic granulomatosis with polyangiitis, Hashimoto's thyroiditis, Graves' disease, idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura, Addison's disease, rheumatoid arthritis (RA), ankylosing spondylitis, polymyositis (PM), dermatomyositis (DM), Alopecia Areata and multiple sclerosis (MS). Autoimmune diseases are very often treated with steroids.
Immunotherapy or biological therapy is the treatment of disease by activating or suppressing the immune system. Immunotherapies designed to elicit or amplify an immune response are classified as activation immunotherapies, while immunotherapies that reduce or suppress are classified as suppression immunotherapies. Immunotherapy is under preliminary research for its potential to treat various forms of cancer.
Immunodeficiency, also known as immunocompromisation, is a state in which the immune system's ability to fight infectious diseases and cancer is compromised or entirely absent. Most cases are acquired ("secondary") due to extrinsic factors that affect the patient's immune system. Examples of these extrinsic factors include HIV infection and environmental factors, such as nutrition. Immunocompromisation may also be due to genetic diseases/flaws such as SCID.
Denise Louise Faustman is an American physician and medical researcher. An associate professor of medicine at Harvard University and director of the Immunobiology Laboratory at Massachusetts General Hospital, her work specializes in diabetes mellitus type 1 and other autoimmune diseases. She has worked at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston since 1985.
Rituximab, sold under the brand name Rituxan among others, is a monoclonal antibody medication used to treat certain autoimmune diseases and types of cancer. It is used for non-Hodgkin lymphoma, chronic lymphocytic leukemia, rheumatoid arthritis, granulomatosis with polyangiitis, idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura, pemphigus vulgaris, myasthenia gravis and Epstein–Barr virus-positive mucocutaneous ulcers. It is given by slow injection into a vein. Biosimilars of Rituxan include Blitzima, Riabni, Ritemvia, Rituenza, Rixathon, Ruxience, and Truxima.
Helminthic therapy, an experimental type of immunotherapy, is the treatment of autoimmune diseases and immune disorders by means of deliberate infestation with a helminth or with the eggs of a helminth. Helminths are parasitic worms such as hookworms, whipworms, and threadworms that have evolved to live within a host organism on which they rely for nutrients. These worms are members of two phyla: nematodes, which are primarily used in human helminthic therapy, and flat worms (trematodes).
Alemtuzumab, sold under the brand names Campath and Lemtrada among others, is a medication used to treat chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) and multiple sclerosis. In CLL, it has been used as both a first line and second line treatment. In MS it is generally only recommended if other treatments have not worked. It is given by injection into a vein.
Experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis, sometimes experimental allergic encephalomyelitis (EAE), is an animal model of brain inflammation. It is an inflammatory demyelinating disease of the central nervous system (CNS). It is mostly used with rodents and is widely studied as an animal model of the human CNS demyelinating diseases, including multiple sclerosis (MS) and acute disseminated encephalomyelitis (ADEM). EAE is also the prototype for T-cell-mediated autoimmune disease in general.
Multiple sclerosis and other demyelinating diseases of the central nervous system (CNS) produce lesions and glial scars or scleroses. They present different shapes and histological findings according to the underlying condition that produces them.
Molecular mimicry is defined as the theoretical possibility that sequence similarities between foreign and self-peptides are sufficient to result in the cross-activation of autoreactive T or B cells by pathogen-derived peptides. Despite the prevalence of several peptide sequences which can be both foreign and self in nature, a single antibody or TCR can be activated by just a few crucial residues which stresses the importance of structural homology in the theory of molecular mimicry. Upon the activation of B or T cells, it is believed that these "peptide mimic" specific T or B cells can cross-react with self-epitopes, thus leading to tissue pathology (autoimmunity). Molecular mimicry is a phenomenon that has been just recently discovered as one of several ways in which autoimmunity can be evoked. A molecular mimicking event is, however, more than an epiphenomenon despite its low statistical probability of occurring and these events have serious implications in the onset of many human autoimmune disorders.
Inflammatory demyelinating diseases (IDDs), sometimes called Idiopathic (IIDDs) due to the unknown etiology of some of them, are a heterogenous group of demyelinating diseases - conditions that cause damage to myelin, the protective sheath of nerve fibers - that occur against the background of an acute or chronic inflammatory process. IDDs share characteristics with and are often grouped together under Multiple Sclerosis. They are sometimes considered different diseases from Multiple Sclerosis, but considered by others to form a spectrum differing only in terms of chronicity, severity, and clinical course.
Hepatitis B vaccine is a vaccine that prevents hepatitis B. The first dose is recommended within 24 hours of birth with either two or three more doses given after that. This includes those with poor immune function such as from HIV/AIDS and those born premature. It is also recommended that health-care workers be vaccinated. In healthy people routine immunization results in more than 95% of people being protected.
Research in multiple sclerosis may find new pathways to interact with the disease, improve function, curtail attacks, or limit the progression of the underlying disease. Many treatments already in clinical trials involve drugs that are used in other diseases or medications that have not been designed specifically for multiple sclerosis. There are also trials involving the combination of drugs that are already in use for multiple sclerosis. Finally, there are also many basic investigations that try to understand better the disease and in the future may help to find new treatments.
Protective autoimmunity is a condition in which cells of the adaptive immune system contribute to maintenance of the functional integrity of a tissue, or facilitate its repair following an insult. The term ‘protective autoimmunity’ was coined by Prof. Michal Schwartz of the Weizmann Institute of Science (Israel), whose pioneering studies were the first to demonstrate that autoimmune T lymphocytes can have a beneficial role in repair, following an injury to the central nervous system (CNS). Most of the studies on the phenomenon of protective autoimmunity were conducted in experimental settings of various CNS pathologies and thus reside within the scientific discipline of neuroimmunology.
An autoimmune disease is a condition arising from an abnormal immune response to a functioning body part. At least 80 types of autoimmune diseases have been identified, with some evidence suggesting that there may be more than 100 types. Nearly any body part can be involved. Common symptoms can be diverse and transient, ranging from mild to severe, and generally include low grade fever and feeling tired.
Adult mesenchymal stem cells are being used by researchers in the fields of regenerative medicine and tissue engineering to artificially reconstruct human tissue which has been previously damaged. Mesenchymal stem cells are able to differentiate, or mature from a less specialized cell to a more specialized cell type, to replace damaged tissues in various organs.
Tolerogenic therapy aims to induce immune tolerance where there is pathological or undesirable activation of the normal immune response. This can occur, for example, when an allogeneic transplantation patient develops an immune reaction to donor antigens, or when the body responds inappropriately to self antigens implicated in autoimmune diseases. It must provide absence of specific antibodies for exactly that antigenes.
Several biomarkers for diagnosis of multiple sclerosis, disease evolution and response to medication are under research. While most of them are still under research, there are some of them already well stablished:
References
- ↑ Cohen IR (2001). "T-cell vaccination for autoimmune disease: a panorama". Vaccine. 20 (5–6): 706–10. doi:10.1016/S0264-410X(01)00419-4. PMID 11738733.
- ↑ Hellings N, Raus J, Stinissen P (2004). "T-cell vaccination in multiple sclerosis: update on clinical application and mode of action". Autoimmun Rev. 3 (4): 267–75. doi:10.1016/j.autrev.2003.10.002. PMID 15246022.
- ↑ Zhang J (2002). "T-cell vaccination for autoimmune diseases: immunologic lessons and clinical experience in multiple sclerosis". Expert Rev Vaccines. 1 (3): 285–92. doi:10.1586/14760584.1.3.285. PMID 12901569. S2CID 1270824.
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