Long-term follow-up of patients treated with recombinant human interferon gamma for cervical intraepithelial neoplasia.

Objectives: The immediate results of interferon gamma (IFN-gamma) treatment in the management of cervical intraepithelial neoplasia (CIN) have been described. However, little is known of the long-term results of this conservative treatment and we aimed to assess them.

Methods: We conducted a 5-year follow-up of 13 women with either complete response to intracervical administration of 6,000,000 IU of IFN-gamma (remission from human papilloma virus-induced CIN occurred in nine cases) or partial response (a lower grade of CIN and/or HPV clearance was achieved in four cases).

Results: We performed Papanicolaou smears and colposcopic examinations every 3 months for the first 2 years and every 6 months for the next 3 years. We found three cases of relapse of stage 1 CIN (CIN I), for a recurrence rate of 33.3%, and three cases of complete remission in four subjects with initial diagnosis of partial response. This allowed us to assess the overall lesion-free rate at 53% for the entire group of patients who had CIN I and CIN II treated with IFN-gamma.

Conclusions: Immunomodulation therapy with IFN-gamma has a high long-term efficacy; however, it is inferior to that of surgery.