Assessment of drug-induced immunotoxicity in animal models.

With the growing understanding that drugs might induce immune-mediated adverse reactions in patients, immunotoxicity testing of new pharmaceuticals has become an important topic in drug development. The nonclinical assessment of unexpected immune suppression is based on relatively well-standardized and validated assays and animal models. For the evaluation of direct immune stimulation few animal models are available, whilst the development of animal models to assess drug-induced hypersensitivity and in particular autoimmunity is in its infancy.: � 2006 Elsevier Ltd . All rights reserved.