Rituximab for the Treatment of Refractory Inflammatory Myopathies and Refractory Myasthenia Gravis

Summary

The traditional treatment of inflammatory myopathies (IM) and generalized myasthenia gravis (MG) is immunosuppressive therapy, usually beginning with corticosteroids. However, up to 70% of treated patients show an incomplete response, including 10 - 30% who are unresponsive. Corticosteroids and other immunosuppressive therapies presented also many side effects. We propose to evaluate in a pilot, open, prospective, multicentric, phase II study, the interest of rituximab in the treatment of patients with primary IM associated with specific AAb (anti-synthetase and anti-SRP AAbs), or MG (with anti-AchR AAbs), refractory to conventional therapies. Twenty fourth patients with primary IM (12 with anti-synthetase, 12 with anti-SRP AAbs), and 12 with MG will be included in the study.

Timeline

Start

2008-01

Primary completion

2011-12

Completion

2011-12

Publications

• Allenbach Y, Guiguet M, Rigolet A, Marie I, Hachulla E, Drouot L, Jouen F, Jacquot S, Mariampillai K, Musset L, Grenier P, Devilliers H, Hij A, Boyer O, Herson S, Benveniste O. Efficacy of Rituximab in Refractory Inflammatory Myopathies Associated with Anti- Synthetase Auto-Antibodies: An Open-Label, Phase II Trial. PLoS One. 2015 Nov 5;10(11):e0133702. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0133702. eCollection 2015.

Drugs

Indications