Study looking into the cause of lupus could lead to
novel therapies and possibly a cure.
The chronic autoimmune disease impacts one and a half million
people in the US Hartford healthcare rheumatologist Doctor Don Andrea
Jackson with Saint Vincent's Medical Center joins me now with
more researchers, what they're finding.
Thanks so much for being here.
Thank you so much, Anne.
All right, Doctor Jackson, before you break down the study,
tell us what lupus is.
So lupus is a autoimmune disease.
And what that means is that your immune system thinks
that your own body is like a virus or a
bacteria that normally comes from the outside to harm us
internally.
So it's essentially our body fighting itself.
And it can have a myriad of presentations and symptoms.
Commonly joint pain, fatigue, rashes are very big part of
lupus.
And in severe cases, it can cause organ failure, which
requires more advanced therapies.
OK, what did this research find that causes it?
Do we know yet?
So at this point in time, we have several theories,
but we believe there's several mechanisms.
But behind lupus's presentation, in this particular study, they discovered
that type 1 interferon, which is a type of hormone
produced by the body in response to stress and inflammation,
usually up regulated increase when patients have viral infections seems
to change how T cells, an important part of the
lupus pathology interacts with other cells and causes the the
lupus disease.
Will this new information help patients and what are the
treatments available so far?
So, you know, this gives us another way to target
treatment because currently we have a few biologics on the
market currently targeted to specific manifestations of lupus.
And we definitely need more because for years we've only
really depended on a few medications like hydroxychloroquine, steroids, and
other medications that we use but don't have the same
robust strength as some of the newer meds that we're
hoping to exceed in the future to manage these diseases
without the toxicity of those other meds.
I hope there's a vaccine for this someday because I
know a lot of sufferers, I'm hopeful too, because my
patients definitely deal with a lot, you know, in terms
of their social life and their ability to go out
and just enjoy sunlight.
You know, they, they tend to experience a lot more
severe disease, unfortunately, when they go out in the sun
and, you know, are exposed.
Doctor Jackson, keep doing what you're doing.
Thank you so much.
Take care.