Inhaled vasoactive intestinal peptide exerts immunoregulatory effects in sarcoidosis

What Was Tested

Researchers studied VIP (Vasoactive Intestinal Peptide) in this clinical trial, phase ii publication.

To test whether inhaled VIP has an immunoregulatory role.

Sarcoid alveolitis was used as a prototype of immune-mediated chronic lung inflammation.

Why It Was Studied

Sarcoidosis is characterized by noncaseating epitheloid cell granulomas, where excessive tumor necrosis factor-alpha production by pulmonary macrophages plays a critical role in granuloma formation and disease progression, which may lead to fatal organ dysfunction.

Who Took Part

The abstract describes 20 patients taking part.

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

In an open clinical phase II study, the researchers treated 20 patients with histologically proved sarcoidosis and active disease with nebulized VIP for 4 weeks.

How the Study Was Run

The timeline in the abstract includes 4 weeks.

What Was Measured

Topics PubMed links to this paper include Administration, Inhalation, Bronchoalveolar Lavage Fluid, Cells, Cultured, Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay, Flow Cytometry, Sarcoidosis, Pulmonary and T-Lymphocytes, Regulatory.

What This Means in Plain Language

This is a clinical trial, phase ii of VIP (Vasoactive Intestinal Peptide) in 20 patients over 4 weeks.

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.

The abstract goes on to report its results in about 5 sentences; this page does not restate them, so read the paper for the findings and their limits.

The publication is from 2010 (American journal of respiratory and critical care medicine), a journal based in England.

More context: the VIP (Vasoactive Intestinal Peptide) compound page, all human trials.