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Orally administered HSV-specific transfer factor (TF) prevents genital or labial herpes relapses

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Biotherapy

Abstract

Forty-four patients suffering from genital (22) and labial (22) herpes were orally treated with HSV-1/2-specific transfer factor(TF). TF was obtained by in vitro replication of a HSV-1/2-specific bovine dialysable lymphocyte extract. Treatment was administered bi-weekly the first 2 weeks, and then weekly for 6 months, most patients received 2–3 courses. The total observation period for all patients before treatment was 26660 days, with 544 relapses, and a relapse index of 61.2, whereas the cumulative observation period during and after treatment was 16945 days, with a total of 121 relapsing episodes and a cumulative RI of 21.4 (P<0.0001). Results were equally significant when the 2 groups of patients (labial and genital) were considered separately. These observations confirm previous results obtained with bovine HSV-specific TF, and warrant further studies to establish HSV-specific TF as a choice of treatment for preventing herpes recurrences.

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Abbreviations

c.equ.:

Cell equivalent

CMI:

Cell mediated immunity

HIV:

Human immunodeficiency virus

HSV:

Herpes simplex virus

LMT:

Leucocyte migration test

LST:

Lymphocyte stimulation test

MI:

Migration index

RI:

relapse index

TF:

Transfer factor

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Immunodiagnosis and Immunotherapy Unit, Ist-Division of Urology, S.Orsola-Malpighi Hospital, 40138, Bologna, Italy

    Giancarlo Pizza, Caterina De Vinci, Diego Cuzzocrea & Vittorio Fornarola

  2. Laboratoire d’Immunobiologie, URA 1294 CNRS, Faculté de Médecine des Saints-Pères, Paris, France

    Dimitri Viza

  3. Department of Statistics, University of Bologna, Italy

    Aldopaolo Palareti

  4. Department of Genetics, University of Ferrara, Italy

    Roberto Baricordi

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  1. Giancarlo Pizza
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  2. Dimitri Viza
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  5. Diego Cuzzocrea
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  6. Vittorio Fornarola
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  7. Roberto Baricordi
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Pizza, G., Viza, D., De Vinci, C. et al. Orally administered HSV-specific transfer factor (TF) prevents genital or labial herpes relapses. Biotherapy 9, 67–72 (1996). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02628659

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