[The application of photopheresis in the therapy of cancerous and autoimmune diseases].

Photopheresis is an extracorporeal form of immunotherapy, recently approved by the FDA for the treatment of cutaneous T-cell lymphoma. During photopheresis lymphocytes are collected from the patients by leukapheresis and after exposure to psoralens and UVA reinfused to the host. The reinfused cells induce an immunological reaction against the neoplastic cells that seems to be clone specific. 37 CTCL patients have been initially treated; 1/4 showed a complete remission, 1/4 did not answer to the therapy and 1/2 showed a clinical improvement without complete remission. The best responders were patients in erythrodermic stage, particularly when photopheresis had been started early. The association with methotrexate induced a complete clinical remission in the cases with a partial answer to photopheresis. The average survival of patients treated with photopheresis was around 50 weeks in comparison with the Mycosis Fungoides Study Group data reporting for the same type of patients a 30 weeks survival using conventional therapies. Photopheresis has been recently used in the rejection control after heart transplantation and in the treatment of AIDS and several autoimmune diseases as pemphigus, sclerodermia, rheumatoid arthritis, LES. The preliminary therapeutic results are very encouraging for a larger use of photopheresis in the treatment of T cell mediated diseases.