TY  - JOUR
ID  - discovery10077886
KW  - rituximab
KW  -  B cell depletion therapy
KW  -  failure
KW  -  systemic erythematosus lupus
EP  - 266
AV  - public
JF  - Clinical and Experimental Rheumatology
N2  - Introduction
The Centre for Rheumatology has treated 165 lupus patients with Rituximab since 2000. Our aim was to identify patients who failed to respond, identify any obvious distinguishing features, and to optimize individual patient treatment.
Methods
We reviewed all 165 lupus patients treated with Rituximab and reviewed the data up to 6 months after treatment. We excluded those who developed allergic reactions, had discoid lupus only or were lost follow-up. We assessed patients with active disease after 6 months, using the British Isles Lupus Assessment Group (BILAG) disease activity scores. Those patients whose A and B scores did not decrease, were deemed to have failed to respond.
Results
144 patients were included in the final analysis. The median disease duration was 6.68 (IQR 2.32-11.90) years. 13.9% of the patients failed to decrease their BILAG scores. Two of the 144 patients died during the 6 months after treatment. The median BILAG at baseline was lower in the failure group (8.50, SD 6.00-12.75) at the time of treatment as opposed to those patients who improved (17, SD12.0-23.0) (p<0.001).
We found that patients with renal involvement failed less often than those without it (p=0.021).
No other significant differences were observed.
Conclusions
Patients with a lower BILAG score are less likely to benefit from RTX treatment. Patients with renal involvement were less likely to fail to respond to RTX. We could not identify other features predictive of failure.
VL  - 38
UR  - https://www.clinexprheumatol.org/abstract.asp?a=13833
A1  - Freitas, S
A1  - Mozo Ruiz, M
A1  - Costa Carneiro, A
A1  - Isenberg, DA
SN  - 0392-856X
Y1  - 2020/03//
TI  - Why do some patients with systemic lupus erythematosus fail to respond to B-cell depletion using rituximab
N1  - This version is the author accepted manuscript. For information on re-use, please refer to the publisher?s terms and conditions.
SP  - 262
ER  -