RATNA1, got it, understood! Excellent article you’ve brought to this forum. I am finally at my preferred device, the laptop, an had the NEJM article translated from German to English—> Freiburg, 25.06.2020
Hormone inhalation stops severe side effect of immune cancer therapy ———
With a novel therapy approach, doctors at the University Hospital of Freiburg managed to cure pneumonia in a patient who had occurred as a result of immune cancer therapy / Publication in the New England Journal of Medicine
Novel immunotherapies are indispensable for the treatment of cancer patients. However, they also lead to life-threatening inflammations of the lungs. Scientists and doctors at the University Hospital of Freiburg have now successfully used a novel therapy approach in a patient. The patient had received immunotherapy because of a melanoma, also called black skin cancer. However, this caused severe pneumonia. The doctors decided to give him the intestinal hormone "vasoactive intestinal peptide" (VIP) for inhalation, the use of which is being investigated at the University Hospital of Freiburg in similar illnesses. Within a few weeks, the pneumonia completely disappeared, which had not been achieved before with cortisone. The case report was published on 25 June 2020 in the renowned journal New England Journal of Medicine.
"After the patient had received cortisone at the beginning, there was a rapid return of air distress and cough," reports Dr. Frank Meiß, senior physician in the Dermatology and Venerology Clinic of the University Hospital Freiburg. Therefore, together with the patient, it was decided to take a new route and give him VIP for inhalation.
The Freiburg physicians and scientists had come up with the idea of the VIP gift, as they had already achieved first successes through VIP in several research projects researching new therapeutic approaches for lung disease sarcoidosis. "We chose this experimental therapy because there are similarities between sarcoidosis and this type of non-bacterial pneumonia," says Dr. Björn Christian Frye, senior physician at the Department of Pneumology at the University Hospital of Freiburg.
"We had expected an improvement in pneumonia, but were very positively surprised by the success of the therapy. The inflammation went down and the patient's shortness of breath disappeared," says Prof. Dr. Joachim Müller-Quernheim, Medical Director of the Clinic for Pneumology at the University Hospital Freiburg. Such non-bacterial pneumonia, called pneumonitis, occurs in 10 to 20 percent of all patients with immune cancer therapy and is usually treated with steroids such as cortisone. However, some of these have strong side effects and require the discontinuation of immunotherapy. Instead of cortisone tablets, which had only led to a short-term improvement but also side effects, the patient had to inhale only three times a day. No side effects were seen during VIP therapy.
