Abstract
Disodium 4-chloro-2, 2'-iminidibenzoate (CCA) is a drug developed in Japan, and its significant efficacy in rheumatoid arthritis has been demonstrated in multicenter double-blind controlled trials. Since CCA is devoid of direct anti-inflammatory activity, it is suggested that the therapeutic effect of CCA in patients with rheumatoid arthritis may be attributable to improvement of immunological abnormalities that underlie this disease. We investigated changes of lymphocyte subsets in patients undergoing CCA therapy, by assays using OKT3, OKT4, OKT8 and OKIa1 monoclonal antibodies. The T 4 cell subset had no change in blood but showed a tendency to decline in synovial fluid. A significant increase of T 8 cells occurred in blood following CCA therapy while this T cell isubset remained unchanged in synovial fluid. Ia cells decreased significantly in blood whereas they tended to increase in synovial fluid. The drug exerts pharmacological actions that suit the purpose of treatment by way of modulating immunological abnormalities in rheumatoid arthritis.
