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Nursing management of patients receiving interferon

1988; Elsevier BV; Volume: 4; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1016/0749-2081(88)90065-4

1878-3449

Mary Beth Hahn, Patricia F. Jassak,

Influenza Virus Research Studies

I NTERFERON was identified in 1957 by Drs Isaacs and Lindemann at the National Institute of Medicine Research, London. ’ They discovered that cells exposed to a virus produced a protein that interfered with subsequent viral assaults. The scientific community, viewing this discovery with great skepticism, doubted the existence of the protein.’ Interestingly, interferon had its debut in the media in a 1960 Flash Gordon comic-strip adventure by artist Dan Barry, in which interferon injections were used to save the lives of spacemen infected with an extraterrestrial virus.3 In the mid1960s other effects of interferon, including its antiproliferative properties were identified. Cantell’s work in the early 1970s led to the production of human interferon alpha (a) in sufficient quantities for limited clinical research.2 In 1975, these clinical trials were expanded by funding from the National Cancer Institute, followed by the American Cancer Society in 1978. The media hailed interferon as the “magic bullet” in cancer therapy despite limited clinical therapeutic data. In 1979, Taniguchi successfully cloned p-interferon4 This was followed by recombinant cloning of o-interferon subtypes and y-interferon. The subsequent development of recombinant DNA technology facilitated the production of large quantities of purified interferons for clinical research.