• Online Features  This Article  • Full text  • PDF  • Reply to article  • Send to a friend  • Save in My Folder  • Save to citation manager  • Permissions  Citing Articles  • Citation map  • Citing articles on HighWire  • Citing articles on Web of Science (8)  • Contact me when this article is cited  Related Content  • Similar articles in this journal  Topic Collections  • Neurology  • Multiple Sclerosis/ Demyelinating Disease  • Drug Therapy  • Drug Therapy, Other  • Immunologic Disorders  • Alert me on articles by topic  Social Bookmarking   What's this?

Olaf Stüve, MD, PhD; Verena I. Leussink, MD; Ruth Fröhlich, MD; Bernhard Hemmer, MD; Hans-Peter Hartung, MD; Til Menge, MD; Bernd C. Kieseier, MD

Arch Neurol. 2009;66(2):259-261. doi:10.1001/archneurol.2008.551

Objective  To describe 2 patients with relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis (RRMS) receiving long-term treatment with the monoclonal antibody rituximab. The clinical and paraclinical efficacy of rituximab was demonstrated recently in a phase 2 clinical trial in patients with RRMS.

Design  Case series.

Setting  Tertiary care university medical center.

Patients  Two young patients with highly active RRMS in whom standard therapy had failed before receiving rituximab for up to 48 months.

Main Outcome Measures  Relapse rate, clinical disability, and results of magnetic resonance imaging.

Results  Both patients tolerated rituximab treatment well and have been clinically stable throughout the study period.

Conclusion  Long-term therapy with rituximab appears safe and effective in some patients with RRMS. Our observation should be confirmed in controlled long-term trials.

Author Affiliations: Division of Neurology, Medicine Service, Dallas Veterans Affairs Medical Center (Dr Stüve), and Department of Neurology, The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center (Dr Stüve), Dallas, Texas; Department of Neurology, Heinrich-Heine-Universität, Düsseldorf, Germany (Drs Leussink, Fröhlich, Hartung, Menge, and Kieseier); and Department of Neurology, Klinikum Rechts der Isar, Technische Universität München, Munich, Germany (Dr Hemmer).

CiteULike    Connotea    Delicious    Digg    Facebook    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter     What's this?

THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES

Distinct in vitro binding properties of the anti-CD20 small modular immunopharmaceutical 2LM20-4 result in profound and sustained in vivo potency in cynomolgus monkeys
Nickerson-Nutter et al.
Rheumatology (Oxford) 2011;50:1033-1044.
ABSTRACT | FULL TEXT  

Long-term follow-up of patients with neuromyelitis optica after repeated therapy with rituximab
Pellkofer et al.
Neurology 2011;76:1310-1315.
ABSTRACT | FULL TEXT  

Atacicept: targeting B cells in multiple sclerosis
Hartung and Kieseier
Therapeutic Advances in Neurological Disorders 2010;3:205-216.
ABSTRACT