Significance of interferon gamma in the prediction of successful therapy of common warts by intralesional injection of Candida antigen

Abstract

Candida antigen is a promising, effective, and safe immunotherapeutic modality for common warts, and IFN-γ may serve as a good predictor of its therapeutic response.

Reply to ‘Topical ionic contra‐viral therapy comprised of digoxin and furosemide as a potential novel treatment approach for common warts’

“…Biomarkers should show (I) a consistent response across studies, that is reproducibility, (II) have a clear dose-response relationship and (III) there should be a plausible relationship between the biomarker, pharmacology of the drug class, and disease pathophysiology. 3 The HPV load determined in biopsies complies with the biomarker criteria. The fact that a correlation between swab and biopsy was found is an indication that the non-invasive HPV load by swab is potentially a possible alternative to biopsies, but further proof must be obtained.…”

“…To consider a biomarker, there should be a significant correlation between the 'biomarker', the clinical response and the disease activity, with a clear cut-off point for the biomarker to consider basically in none/minimally invasive method. Recently, Nofal et al 3 studied 54 patients with multiple common warts subjected to intralesional candida antigen (ILC) injection with a 61.1% complete response. The authors proposed IFN-c at a cut-off point 0.89 a good predictor of the therapeutic response to ILC.…”

Reply to “Significance of interferon gamma in the prediction of successful therapy of common warts by intralesional injection of Candida antigen”

“…This may provide an explanation of why some patients in Nofal et al . 's study were not responding to the treatment . Further it sheds light on the genetic background of the released IFN‐ γ m and why the level varied among the patients and, hence, the clinical response.…”

“…I applaud Nofal et al . for their study published recently in the International Journal of Dermatology.…”

“…Whether the responders in Nofal et al . 's study had a particular morphology was not clear. However, the authors stated “No statistically significant association was found between the therapeutic responses to Candida antigen and most of the clinical variables.” Though promising, the study by Nofal et al ., taking into the account the aforementioned points (HPV genotype, serial assessment of IFN‐ γ , correlation of the response to the lesional morphology), would provide an expanded predictive criteria for response to immunotherapy.…”