[The clinical usefulness of high-dose intravenous immunoglobulin therapy for chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy and multifocal motor neuropathy].

To explore the optimum dose of intravenous immunoglobulin (i.v.Ig) for treating patients with chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyrneuropathy and multifocal motor neuropathy, we compared the usefulness of i.v.Ig among 3 treatment doses. Fifty-nine patients were randomly divided into three treatment dosage groups: 20 patients for Group I using 50 mg/kg/day x 5 days, 19 patients Group II using 200 mg/kg/day x 5 days, and 20 patients Group III using 400 mg/kg/day x 5 days. We assessed clinically and electrophysiologically the effectiveness of the treatment at 5 weeks after the initial infusion. For patients in Group I and II who had not improved (or worsened) with the first treatment, we gave a one-step larger dose in the second treatment (i.e. 200 mg/kg/day x 5 days for those who had been given 50 mg/kg/day x 5 days, 400 mg/kg/day x 5 days for those who had been given 200 mg/kg/day x 5 days) after more than 9 weeks. We found that 15% of the patients in Group I, 21% in Group II and 60% in Group III improved dose-dependently with the first intravenous immunoglobulin treatment. Seven (47%) of 16 patients in Group I and 4 (40%) of 11 patients in Group II improved after the second treatment with larger doses. Adverse reactions including chill sensation, fever, skin eruption and increase in blood GOT and GPT levels were transient and mild. One patient in Group III developed left hemiparesis showing the small infarction in the right thalamus during the course of the treatment, but the symptom was mild. In conclusion, the high-dose intravenous immunoglobulin therapy (400 mg/kg/day x 5 days) is useful for treating patients with CIDP and MMN, although care must be taken of the risk of causing cerebral infarctions.