intralesional immunotherapy in dermatology

Summary and Conclusion : Immunological therapy has for many years rested on a limited group of immunosuppressant drugs including corti co steroids and anti - metabolites. These remain important, but advances in understanding of basic immunology and parallel technical advances have opened the door to new and exciting immunological therapies with potentially fewer side effects. Nonetheless, steroids and antimetabolites will remain important. The benefit of these new therapies is that they use the body’s own defenses to successfully control and potentially cure some of the most common skin conditions that can be both physically and psychologically disruptive to patients’ lives. Recently, dermatologists have witnessed a revolution in the therapeutic field with the development of several novel biologic immunomodulators. The term ”biologic” refers to therapeutic and diagnostic agents synthesized from the products of living organisms through the use of recombinant biotechnology. Because biologics can be tailored to suppress only a specific part of the immune system, their safety profile is generally considered to be more favorable than that of traditional systemic immunosuppressive agents. These agents include tumor necrosis factor antagonists, monoclonal antibodies, therapeutic vaccines and recombinant cytokines. Intralesional therapy implies injecting a drug directly into the skin lesion for faster action and better results. It has been an important part of dennatologic therapy since first introduced in 1961. The concept of intralesional injection is to let the drug pass the banier zone and establish a subepidermal depot thus allowing a higher concentration of the drug to act at the site of the disease. It is an outdoor procedure and does not need 102