Epstein-Barr: New Therapeutic Target in SLE?

“If you accept the idea that the virus is a necessary condition in order to develop lupus—just hypothetically—then if a way was developed to rid the body of the virus and the virus' presence was needed to sustain the disease, then that would be a new therapeutic approach. The virus has been adapted to human beings for something like 20 million years. So it has found a wonderful niche in our peculiar environment, and it has many presumably unknown ways of sustaining that infection,” he said.

Disclosures: Dr. Harley disclosed that he is on the board of directors of IVAX Diagnostics Inc., and JK Autoimmunity Inc. He is also a consultant to UCB and Bio-Rad Laboratories Inc.

Serum from the DOD repository showed increased anti-EBV titers in patients years before they developed SLE.

Source DR. HARLEY