EDITORIAL - Rituximab treatment in RA: how does it work?

[Guest guest]

Arthritis Research & Therapy 2009, 11:134doi:10.1186/ar2852

Rituximab treatment in rheumatoid arthritis: how does it work?

JH Boumans and P Tak

Division of Clinical Immunology and Rheumatology, Academic Medical

Center/University of Amsterdam, 1100 DE Amsterdam, the Netherlands

Abstract

Treatment with the chimerical monoclonal antibody rituximab results in

CD20-directed B cell depletion. Although this depletion is almost

complete in the peripheral blood of nearly all patients with

rheumatoid arthritis, a proportion of patients does not exhibit a

clinical response. The paper by Nakou and colleagues suggests that a

decrease in CD19+CD27+ memory B cells in both peripheral blood and

bone marrow precedes the clinical response to rituximab. This finding

adds to the emerging evidence that lack of response to rituximab is

associated with persistence of B lineage cells in specific body

compartments.

***************************************

Read the whole editorial here:

http://arthritis-research.com/content/11/6/134

Not an MD