Biological response modifiers: Current use and future prospects in cancer therapy.

Over the past few decades, considerable success has been achieved in the field of cancer treatment with biological response modifiers (BRM), which are agents that improve the body's ability to fight cancer by immunostimulation. Biological agents, such as interferons and interleukins, provide nonspecific active immunity, whereas the monoclonal antibodies provide passive immunity. Apart from this, other biological agents, such as antiangiogenic agents, matrix metalloprotease inhibitors, tyrosine kinase inhibitors, and tumor vaccines, are also increasingly being used in cancer treatment. Hematopoietic factors, such as granulocyte colony-stimulating factor, are used to increase the general immunity and prevent opportunistic infection. BRM are basically used alone or as adjuvants to cancer chemotherapeutic agents. This review sheds light on the current use and the future development of cancer immunotherapy. Search strategy included Pubmed, using the terms "Biological response modifiers in cancer" citations relevant to the topic were screened.

One year outcome of babies with severe neonatal hyperbilirubinemia and reversible abnormality in brainstem auditory evoked responses.

Brainstem auditory evoked responses (BAER) were longitudinally recorded prospectively in 18 term infants with neonatal hyperbilirubinemia (NHB) (total serum bilirubin > 15 mg/dl). Seven neonates had abnormal BAER. Wave complex IV-V was absent in eight recordings in NHB group while they were normal in the control group (p < 0.001). Prolongation of latency of waves I and V and interwave conduction time (wave I-V) occurred in jaundiced infants especially when unconjugated serum bilirubin level rose above 22 mg/dl. The abnormalities in BAER reversed to normal in all seven neonates after exchange blood transfusion indicating transient nature of bilirubin toxicity to the brain. All seven neonates in the study and control group had normal hearing, development quotient and were free of neurological sequelae on follow up for one year.

Auditory brain stem evoked response in normal neonates and infants.

Auditory brainstem evoked responses (ABER) were recorded to provide normative data regarding the latency values, brainstem conduction times in term neonates and infants up to 24 months of age. The mean latency for wave I - 1.86 +/- 0.11 m sec, wave III - 5.11 +/- 0.31 m sec, wave V - 7.10 +/- 0.30 m sec progressively decreased at birth to wave I - 1.64 +/- 0.17 m sec, wave III - 4.40 +/- 0.27 m sec, wave V - 6.15 +/- 0.21 m sec at 12 months of age by stimulus strength of 75 decibels at a rate 20 clicks/sec. Interwave conduction times improved to I-III - 2.76 +/- 0.29 m sec, I-V - 4.51 +/- 0.29 m sec, III-V - 1.75 +/- 0.17 m sec at 12 months from I-III - 3.25 +/- 0.26 m sec, I-V - 5.23 +/- 0.23 m sec, III-V - 1.99 +/- 0.35 m sec at birth.