PENTOXIFYLLINE INHIBITS THE FIBROGENIC ACTIVITY OF PLEURAL EFFUSIONS AND TRANSFORMING GROWTH-FACTOR-BETA

PHYSIOPATHOLOGY of organ fibrosis is far from being completely underst ood, and the efficacy of the available therapeutic strategies is disap pointing, We chose pleural disease for further studies and addressed t he questions of which cytokines are relevant in pleural fibrosis and w hich drugs might interrupt its development, We screened pleural effusi ons for mediators thought to interfere with fibrogenesis (transforming growth factor-beta (TGF-beta), tumour necrosis factor alpha (TNF alph a), soluble TNF-receptor p55 (sTNF-R)) and correlated the results with patient clinical outcome in terms of extent of pleural thickenings, W e found pleural thickenings correlated with TGF-beta (P < 0.005) where as no correlations could be observed with TNF alpha and sTNF-R, Furthe r, we were interested in finding out how TGF-beta effects on fibroblas t growth could be modulated. We found that pentoxifylline is able to i nhibit both fibroblast proliferation and collagen synthesis independen tly of the stimulus, We conclude that, judging from in vitro studies, pentoxifylline might offer a new approach in the therapy of pleural as well as pulmonary fibrosis.