- Over an average of 29 months, 65 out of the 100 patients taking rituximab treatment experienced remission of their disease. Twenty-seven of these patients achieved complete remission.
- All patients with at least four years of follow-up achieved complete or partial remission, and their kidney function improved over time.
- Rituximab was effective even when previous treatments with steroids and other immunosuppressive drugs had failed.
- Patients tolerated rituximab well and experienced no treatment-related serious side effects throughout the entire study.
"Rituximab may lead to major progress in the treatment of patients with idiopathic membranous nephropathy, and in consideration of its excellent safety profile, it might replace other toxic regimens as first line treatment of this disease," said Dr. Remuzzi.
An added benefit of rituximab is that it can be administered in one single intravenous infusion on an outpatient basis, while courses of steroids and other drugs for IMN require at least six months of continued treatment and often cause patients to become hospitalized due to complications.
Study co-authors include Paolo Cravedi, MD, PhD, Antonietta Chianca, PhD, Annalisa Perna, StatSciD, Barbara Ruggiero, MD, Flavio Gaspari, PhD, Alessandro Rambaldi, MD, and Maddalena Marasà , MD.
Source: Newswise
