Favorable outcomes of interferon-α and ribavirin treatment for a male with subacute sclerosing panencephalitis

Abstract

Subacute sclerosing panencephalitis (SSPE) is a slow virus infection associated with mutant measles virus (MeV). The long-term outcome of antiviral treatments remains to be determined. We herein present a Japanese boy who was diagnosed with SSPE at 10 years of age. Intraventricular infusions of interferon-α effectively prevented the progress of symptoms during 14 years of follow-up period. Flow-cytometric analysis demonstrated higher proportion of T helper 17 cells (Th17, 18.2%) than healthy controls (4.8–14.5%) despite the normal subpopulation of peripheral lymphocytes. These data suggest that a group of patients with SSPE may show favorable responses to intraventricular infusions of interferon-α.