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Protein responsible for chronic rhinosinusitis with polyps tracked down

Protein responsible for chronic rhinosinusitis with polyps tracked down Researchers from the Johns Hopkins have suggested during a study that a protein, vascular endothelial growth factor, or VEGF, a protein important for normal blood vessel growth, is responsible for overgrowth of cells in development of polyps characterizing one of the most severe forms of sinusitis.

This finding by Johns Hopkins researchers is expected to give a new target for development of new therapies for treating this disease form, which usually resist all present forms of treatment.

From Sciencedaily.com:

Kim explains that surgery to remove the polyps is one of the most common treatments for this disease. However, nasal and sinus polyps in these patients almost always regrow. “Once the patient has entered the cycle of growing polyps, it’s very hard to get out,” she says. Another common treatment is oral steroids, but these drugs are fraught with many harmful side effects and also only temporarily treat the disease.

She and her Johns Hopkins colleagues have long studied sinusitis, often growing sinus cells isolated from patients in petri dishes. After noticing that cells from patients with polyps typically multiplied faster than cells from normal patients, the researchers speculated that cells from polyp patients might be producing extra amounts of some type of growth factor, a protein that encourages cell growth.

Jean Kim, M.D., Ph.D., assistant professor in the Departments of Otolaryngology and Allergy and Clinical Immunology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, and a researcher at the Johns Hopkins Allergy and Asthma Center at the Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center, said that this kind of sinusitis is not subtle and medical practitioners can identify the patients from polyps from across the room.

The findings were published in the Dec. 1 American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine and suggested that doctors can treat sinusitis in patients with polyps by making use of therapies that minimize VEGF in sinus tissues.

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