Monitoring of immunotherapy with cytokines or monoclonal antibodies.

Recombinant cytokines and monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) are increasingly used in the treatment of a number of human diseases. Monitoring of the clinical efficacy of these agents requires specific clinical and laboratory measurements. A number of these novel therapies share common side effects, ranging from fever, headache and general malaise to hypotension, the development of edema leading to the vascular leak syndrome, the occurrence of thromboembolic processes and, in severe cases, organ dysfunction. As an example of the pathogenesis of these side effects, recent data are presented which were obtained in patients receiving immunotherapy with high doses of the cytokine interleukin-2 as an anti-cancer treatment.