Basal Cell Carcinoma and Actinic Keratosis Treated with Intralesional Injection of Recombinant Alpha-2 Interferon

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: The effects of intralesional recombinant alpha-2 interferon(IFN) in the treatment of basal cell carcinoma(BCC) and actinic keratosis(AK) would be of value in selected patients. OBJECTIVE: Our purpose is to evaluate the differences of cellular immune reactions between the responded and the unresponded cases treated with IFN. METHODS: We treated five patients with BCC and two patients with AK with the intralesional injection of recombinant alpha-2 IFN. We performed immunohistochemical stainings with paraffin-embedded specimens from the pretreated and posttreated skin lesions. RESULTS: Four patients(three with BCC and one with AK) were healed and three patients showed improvement after treatment. In immunohistochemical stainings, there was an increased number of T cells in the dermal infiltrate of the responded cases but not in the unresponded cases. CONCLUSION: Intralesional IFN may induce T cell-mediated immune response at the site of the tumor by immune modulation.