Xeroderma pigmentosum afflicts about one in every 250,000 people in the United States. In many people with the condition, the skin cancer is fatal at an early age, said lead study author Robert Johnson. Imagine one day you ave normal hearing, and the next day you don't. This hearing loss continues, resulting in complete deafness within just a few weeks. That's what happens in autoimmune inner ear disease, a rare form ofhearing loss that affects hearing and oftentimes balance.
Many experts think the disorder is caused by inflammation and altered immunity within the inner ear.
Harris said treatments include the same immunosuppressive medications that are used against other autoimmune related disorders, such as high-dose prednisone, methotrexate and cyclophosphamide. While these drugs are effective, it is difficult to determine which patients will respond and whether symptoms will return. The three-year study is to measure the benefits of the medications and to determine the best diagnostic tests that might point to who will respond best to which therapy. An immunization with thepeptide involved in the development of amyloid plaques commonly seen in Alzheimer's disease reduces existing plaques and preventsfurther plaques from developing in mouse models, according to a study. In the study, reported in the British journal Nature, researchers immunized transgenic mice.