Use of recombinant interferons and hematopoietic growth factors in patients infected with human immunodeficiency virus.

The recombinant cytokines are increasingly important therapeutic agents for patients with AIDS. Recombinant interferon-alpha has demonstrated antitumor and antiretroviral activities in patients with Kaposi's sarcoma. Limited studies with interferon-beta suggest that it also has antitumor effects in patients with Kaposi's sarcoma, but interferon-gamma appears to be ineffective in controlling this tumor. The hematopoietic growth factors, including erythropoietin, granulocyte colony-stimulating factor (G-CSF), and granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF), have been evaluated in several populations of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-infected individuals. The combination of G-CSF and recombinant human erythropoietin completely reversed the zidovudine-induced neutropenia of AIDS patients but was only partially effective in reversing anemia. In several clinical trials, GM-CSF induced marked increases in leukocyte counts and improved neutrophil function in some AIDS patients. In severely immunocompromised patients with disease caused by HIV who were receiving therapy with either G-CSF or GM-CSF, opportunistic infections continued to occur despite increases in circulating white blood cell counts. Recombinant cytokines may be used in the future in AIDS patients as adjunctive treatment with myelosuppressive antibiotics and chemotherapeutic drugs, as a possible means of enhancing host defense, or as agents of immune reconstitution.