These findings also suggests that immune effector molecules, especially chemokines and cytokines, whose synthesis is affected by immunomodulator drugs such as Product R, play an important role in mediating the toxic effects of many drugs. Thalidomide, in addition to its sedative effects, has anti-angiogenic and immunomodulatory properties. The drug has been used to treat the immune reactions associated with leprosy and to treat autoimmune symptoms in patients with inflammatory bowel disease. Recently, Thalidomide has been used as an anti-neoplastic drug to treat patients with multiple myeloma and myeloid dysplasia. Thalidomide exerts a variety of effects on immune function.
Irinotecan therapy is complicated by severe diarrhea in up to forty percent of patients.
The gastrointestinal toxicity of Irinotecan limits its use in most patients. Dr. Govinbarajan and his colleagues found that Thalidomide almost eliminated the therapy-limiting toxic effects of Irinotecan and allowed eight of nine patients to complete the therapeutic chemotherapy course with Irinotecan. The clinical results observed with the immunomodulator-type drugs Product R and Thalidomide open the exciting possibility of using immunomodulator drugs to eliminate the toxic effects of other therapeutic drugs. It should be appreciated that while Product R has no apparent toxic side effects, Thalidomide is itself a potentially toxic drug. The severe teratogenic properties of Thalidomide, which caused its removal from the marketplace in 1960 after it was introduced as a sedative in the 1950s, are well known.