[Anti-CD4 therapy in treatment of rheumatoid arthritis--have the die been cast?].

The hypothesis of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) as a T cell mediated disease has led to the development of numerous therapeutic approaches that target the function of T cells. The development of monoclonal antibodies against the T cell surface molecule CD4 has raised hopes to achieve a major progress in the treatment of RA. However, after encouraging results in early open studies, double blind trials were unable to demonstrate the efficacy of anti-CD4-therapy in RA.