[Review of the current use of rituximab during 4 years in a French university hospital].

PURPOSE

Rituximab is a human/murine chimeric monoclonal antibody primarily used for treating non-Hodgkin's B-cell lymphoma. Recently, it has also been used in the treatment of several autoimmune diseases.

PATIENTS AND METHODS

We conducted a retrospective analysis of patients treated at least once with rituximab between 2010 and 2013 in a French university hospital, to provide a panoramic view of rituximab use including FDA or off-labels uses, its efficacy and safety.

RESULTS

Eighty-seven patients were included with 20 different indications: cryoglobulinemic vasculitis (16%) and anti-PLA2R idiopathic membranous nephropathy (13%) were the most frequent. Rituximab use was off-labels in 50% of cases. Eleven percent of patients experienced severe adverse events, mostly infections. After rituximab, 17% of patients were in complete response (CR), 41% in partial response (PR), and 39% non-responding (NR). Relapse was observed in 65% (33/51) of responding patients.

CONCLUSION

Further investigation with randomized controlled trials will provide more insight into the specifics of the role of RTX in the overall management of each disease. Identifying clear objectives and strict outcome measures, associated with long term clinical and biological follow-up would help deciding when, how and in which therapeutic regimen will rituximab most benefit a disease or a patient.