Step I Sarcoidosis and inteferon

Get help with your application

Use all the free resources available to you from SDN: articles, guides, expert advising, forums discussions, and school research.

MudPhud20XX

Full Member
10+ Year Member
I just had a Kaplan question saying that interferon should be avoided in sarcoidosis since it stimulates the granuloma formation. Then I looked at FC and it says:

IFNγ (interferon-γ) — used for chronic granulomatous disease

These two seem to be conflicting. Can anyone help me out?

Many thanks in advance.
 
I just had a Kaplan question saying that interferon should be avoided in sarcoidosis since it stimulates the granuloma formation. Then I looked at FC and it says:

IFNγ (interferon-γ) — used for chronic granulomatous disease

These two seem to be conflicting. Can anyone help me out?

Many thanks in advance.
Your base misunderstanding here seems to be the role of granulomas in CGD. It's not like in sarcoidosis, where the body is making granulomas in places that they don't belong; instead, because the lack of MPO is keeping neutrophils from converting H2O2 into bleach, the body can't kill and clear catalase-positive organisms, so is instead (appropriately) walling them off into granulomas to prevent systemic infections. It's not really understood how the IFN helps people with CGD, but it probably has something to do with stimulating part of the immune response not affected by the lack of MPO (ie macrophages). Hope that helps.