Pentoxifylline:
The antiviral property of pentoxifylline against tick-borne encephalitis
virus, herpes simplex virus, vaccinia virus, and rotavirus has been
shown in vitro, indicating the wide-spectrum of antiviral activity of
pentoxifylline (Amvros’ eva et al. 1993).
This also accords with the previous report, which demonstrated the
suppression of the human immunodeficiency virus type 1 replication in
human peripheral blood mononuclear cells
(Fazely et al. 1991). Furthermore, in a
randomized, controlled trial, adjunctive therapy with pentoxifylline in
HIV patients with tuberculosis resulted in a statistically significant
overall reduction in plasma HIV RNA compared to the control group
(Wallis et al. 1996). The evaluation of
pentoxifylline in HIV patients demonstrated a transient positive trend
of change in CD4+ and CD8+ cells (Clerici
et al. 1997)
There are limited, precise details on the antiviral mechanism of
pentoxifylline. Concerning this question, research has been done to
identify the stage at which pentoxifylline inhibits the replication of
the Japanese encephalitis virus. The finding of this study provides
further support for the hypothesis that the drug most likely exerted its
inhibitory action on virus assembly and/or release
(Sebastian et al. 2009) and, therefore,
may have the potential to use a similar inhibitory effect(Figure 1) on SARS-CoV-2 virus as well.