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Overactive Immune System
The immune system
functions to prevent disease. Sometimes, however, it can cause it. An
overactive immune system fails to distinguish between foreign
invaders and its own body constituents. As a result, it attacks a
part of itself. This condition is indicative of auto immune diseases.
The
common characteristic of all auto immune diseases is an immune system
that attacks healthy tissues, thus provoking inflammation, as well as
tissue and organ damage. Autoimmunity is present to some extent in
everyone, but it usually causes no harm. Auto immune diseases,
however, progress to a pathogenic state that involves the whole
immune system: antigens, antigen-presenting cells, T and B
lymphocytes, messenger molecules, cytokines, chemokines and their
receptors, and signaling and co-stimulatory molecules.
Until
recently, the most common treatment for an overactive immune system
has been steroids, chemotherapy and major immunosuppressants.
However, such treatments carried with them serious side effects. More
effective treatments target only parts of the immune system by
blocking specific molecules in the inflammatory pathway. The first
generation of these therapeutics, primarily directed against
cytokines, are monoclonal antibodies.
The
most commonly prescribed monoclonal antibodies are:
ENBREL®
(etanercept)
Remicade®
(infliximab)
HUMIRA®
(adalimumab)
Kineret®
(anakinra)
The
most promising route to long term remission of autoimmune diseases
comes from autologous haematopoietic stem-cell transplants (HSCTs)
that 'reset' the whole immune system by replacing it with fresh
cells.
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