Successful application of pentoxifylline in the treatment of HTLV-I associated myelopathy

Relationship between the Clinical Efficacy of Pentoxifylline Treatment and Elevation of Serum T Helper Type 2 Cytokine Levels in Patients with Human T-lymphotropic Virus Type I-Associated Myelopathy.

“…Motor disability scores were rated from 0 to 10, according to a previously described rating scale (4). Complete clinical profiles of 6 of the 12 HAMpatients and the treatment protocol have been previously described (5). Briefly, 300 mg of PTX (Hoechst Japan, Tokyo) was administered daily by the oral route to HAMpatients for 4 weeks.…”

“…Various treatment modalities, including corticosteroids (2), interferon-a (3) and plasmapheresis (4), have proven to be limited or dubious benefit. Recently, we reported the efficacy of pentoxifylline (PTX) treatment in patients with HAM (5). Although PTXdownregulates inflammatory cytokine production, such as tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-oc), interferon-gamma (IFN-y) and granulocytemacrophage colony stimulating factor (GM-CSF), in peripheral blood mononuclear cells of HAMpatients (6), the precise mechanismsby which PTXserves to ameliorate the motor disability in HAMare far from clear.…”

Pentoxifylline down modulate in vitro T cell responses and attenuate pathology in Leishmania and HTLV-I infections

“…In 13 of the 15 patients, motor disability, especially spasticity, improved substantially. No adverse effects were observed [77]. Another open study with 12 patients have also shown beneficial effect of pentoxifylline [76].…”

“…Pentoxifylline has been tested to treat several inflammatory and infectious diseases, such as acute respiratory distress syndrome [2,75], inflammatory bowel disease [6], HTLV-1 Associated Myelopathy (HAM/TSP) [76,77], cutaneous and mucosal leishmaniasis [61,62,78]. In these studies pentoxifylline was used in doses ranging from 300 to 1200 mg/day for a range of 4 weeks to 12 months and had no important toxic effects.…”

Corticosteroid therapy in TSP/HAM patients: The results from a 10 years open cohort

“…and antiretroviral drugs [18][19][20][21] have been reported. There are also some reports about the transient benefits of immunotherapy, Pentoxyfiline, Danazol and more recently milk drinks containing Lactobacillus casei [22][23][24][25]. Even though corticosteroids are the most widely used therapy for TSP/HAM, few clinical trials with corticosteroids have been published recently.…”