Immunosuppression

Abstract

The different modalities of tissue damage produced by immunologic mechanisms are, generally speaking, chronically progressive, sometimes disfiguring, and frequently lethal. Control of their clinical manifestations has been attempted with corticosteroids, but therapy with these hormones has limitations arising from their nonspecificity, the irregularity with which they act in certain immunologic diseases — for example, in chronic glomerulonephritides — and in the production of undesirable side effects when used for long periods of time.