AIDS-related Kaposi's sarcoma patients with visceral manifestations. Response to human chorionic gonadotropin preparations

What Was Tested

Researchers studied hCG (human chorionic gonadotropin) in this clinical trial, phase ii publication.

These findings prompted preliminary study of hCG preparations for patients with early-stage KS with skin lesions only and no known visceral involvement.

Complete or partial regression of the skin lesions occurred after intralesional injections of hCG (hCG-Pregnyl, hCG-APL).

The current study sought to extend these early observations to evaluation of the safety of hCG in acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) KS patients with aggressive disease and visceral involvement.

Who Took Part

According to the abstract, 13 patients were involved.

PubMed indexes the participants as adults, both men and women.

After approval by the local institutional review boards, 13 patients with advanced AIDS-KS gave informed consent and were treated with hCG preparations.

Patients were monitored for tumor size by clinical evaluation, ultrasonography, radiography, respiratory functions, and endoscopic examination.

How the Study Was Run

These hCG preparations are known to have antiproliferative activity in laboratory tests.

Histologic examinations of biopsied tissues were used for studies of apoptosis using in situ hybridization techniques.

The patients were also monitored for CD4+ T-cell numbers and human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) plasma viral load according to common clinical practice.

What Was Measured

Topics PubMed links to this paper include AIDS-Related Opportunistic Infections, Apoptosis, CD4 Lymphocyte Count, Chorionic Gonadotropin, HIV-1, Sarcoma, Kaposi and Viral Load.

What This Means in Plain Language

This is a clinical trial, phase ii of hCG (human chorionic gonadotropin) in 13 patients.

With fewer than 40 people, it is a small study, so it is better read as an early signal for further research than as a settled answer.

Results are reported in around 9 sentences of the abstract; we leave them to the paper itself rather than summarise them.

The publication is from 1998 (Journal of human virology), a journal based in United States.

More context: the hCG (human chorionic gonadotropin) compound page, all human trials.