Rituximab drug shows promise against lupus.

2004 OCT 7 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- A drug now used to treat a type of cancer appears to be very effective at treating systemic lupus erythematosus, with just one injection easing symptoms in several patients for a year or more.

The results of the clinical trial involving 17 patients were published in the August 2004 issue of Arthritis and Rheumatism.

The finding has its roots in a hypothesis put forth by the team of physicians at the University of Rochester Medical Center, New York, who did the study. They suspected that because lupus involves the same immune cells as lymphoma, a drug successful at treating lymphoma might also help lupus patients. So doctors tested the medication rituximab, approved in 1997 to treat lymphoma, in patients with the chronic inflammatory disease where the immune system mistakenly attacks a person's own tissues.

The results bear out the hypothesis. Eleven of the 17 patients had a significant drop in immune cells known as B cells, and the health of those patients improved significantly, an improvement that was evident for the 12 months that the study lasted. Several were able to reduce or go off their traditional lupus medications.

"In most patients, their lupus improved significantly," says rheumatologist R. John Looney, MD, who led the study. "Since lupus differs a great deal from person to person, the ways that patients improved varied. Some had less joint pain; some had fewer skin rashes. But everyone who had fewer B cells had significantly improved health.

"These patients were treated for a very brief period of time, and some of them are still doing just great, several years later," he reports.

The benefit wasn't as marked for everyone, including patients who did not receive the full dose of the medicine in the dose-escalation study, as well as African American patients. Scientists are investigating the differences.