Interferon-neutralizing antibodies in a patient treated with human fibroblast interferon.

During recent years clinical trials have shown that human leukocyte interferon (HuIFN-alpha) may be useful in the treatment of cancer, but very little has been done concerning the possible use of human fibroblast interferon (HuIFN-beta). Treuner et al. recently reported the successful treatment of a nasopharyngeal carcinoma with HuIFN-beta: in the course of IFN-therapy a HuIFN-beta neutralizing activity appeared in the serum of this patient. We report here that such activity is due to IgG antibodies--this study is the first to present evidence for antigenicity of IFN in a homologous system.