Anti-interferon alpha antibodies and autoantibodies in patients with Beh‡et's disease uveitis treated with recombinant human interferon alpha-2a

Recombinant human (rh) interferon alpha2a (IFN-alpha 2a) therapy is successfully used for the treatment of Beh double dagger et's disease (BD) uveitis refractory to conventional immunosuppressive treatment. Our aim in this study was to investigate the frequency and clinical significance of anti-IFN-alpha antibodies and autoantibodies during recombinant human rhIFN-alpha 2a therapy in patients with BD uveitis. This comparative, cross-sectional, serological screening study included 30 BD patients treated with rhIFN-alpha 2a (Group 1), 29 BD patients treated with conventional immunosuppressive agents (Group 2), 29 BD patients who received only colchicine (Group 3), and 30 healthy subjects (Group 4). Anti-IFN-alpha-binding antibodies and autoantibodies, including anti-nuclear antibody, anti-thyroid peroxidase antibody, and anti-cardiolipin antibody, were measured in serum samples. Antibody seropositivity was compared between study groups. Retrospective clinical data were compared between antibody-positive and antibody-negative patients. A significantly higher proportion of patients in Group 1 had anti-interferon-alpha (26.6 %) and autoantibody (30 %) seropositivity compared to the other groups. No correlation was found between seropositivity for anti-interferon-alpha and other autoantibodies. No significant difference was found in cumulative dose of IFN-alpha, duration of IFN-alpha therapy, time to first uveitis attack, or attack rate between anti-interferon-alpha antibody-positive and antibody-negative patients in Group 1. Uveitis attacks were observed in 22 % of autoantibody-positive and 71 % of autoantibody-negative patients in Group 1 (p = 0.018). Patients with BD uveitis develop anti-IFN-alpha-binding antibodies and autoantibodies during treatment with rhIFN-alpha 2a. While the clinical relevance of anti-IFN-alpha-binding antibodies remains unclear in this study, induction of autoimmunity was found to be associated with a tendency for better therapeutic response.