[Hypothesis for the use of levamisole in rheumatic diseases (author's transl)].

For years the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis has been based on the assumption that the autoimmune processes and bone lesions occuring in rheumatic patients are due to inflammatory and immune reactions. Treatment was aimed at restricting these reactions. But various investigators have come to the conviction that the primary factor is not an immunological hyperreactivity but an immunodeficiency in autoimmune diseases. The immunotherapeutic use of transfer factor, BCG and levamisole in patients with rheumatoid arthritis is based on this hypothesis. From the fact that a therapeutic effect is demonstrable in such patients treated with levamisole, the theory that rheumatoid arthritis is an immunodeficiency disease should be accorded greater importance.