Immunomodulatory properties of rumalon, a glycosaminoglycan peptide complex, in patients with osteoarthritis: activation of T helper cell type 2 cytokines and antigen-specific IgG4 antigen-specific igG4 antibodies

Klein R, Becker EW, Berg PA, Bernau A · The Journal of Rheumatology

Antibodies to the extract — chiefly IgG4 — appeared in 7 of 17 patients after a single injection series and in all four patients who had received nine or more series, alongside significant rises in IL-5 and IL-10. An animal-tissue cartilage extract is measurably immunogenic in people.

Population

Patients with osteoarthritis who had received between one and eighteen series of Rumalon injections

Intervention

Serial measurement of antibodies against the bovine cartilage-and-bone-marrow extract and of type 1 and type 2 cytokines

Comparator

Pre-treatment sera and patients at lower cumulative exposure

Limitations

Small, uncontrolled, and about an injected product; the clinical meaning of the antibody response was not established, and nothing here transfers automatically to an oral capsule.