Immunosuppressive drug therapy for rheumatic disease.

The role of intravenous and oral cyclophosphamide in treating systemic lupus and Wegener's granulomatosis was examined in several large studies during the past year. Oral cyclophosphamide for 2 months followed by prednisone alone was relatively ineffective in preventing disease progression in lupus nephritis patients with initially abnormal serum creatinine values. A controlled trial in which three regimens for treating lupus nephritis were compared resulted in superiority of long-term intravenous cyclophosphamide therapy over pulse prednisone or short-term intravenous cyclophosphamide. Two open studies describe treatment of neuropsychiatric lupus with pulse cyclophosphamide. Patients with clinical evidence of inflammatory disease of the central nervous system appeared to respond to this therapy even if antiphospholipid antibodies were present. Analysis of a large cohort of patients with Wegener's granulomatosis showed a high incidence of cancer at long-term follow-up as well as a high incidence of recurrence, often several years after induction of remission with cyclophosphamide plus prednisone. Much progress was made in defining the mechanisms of action of cyclosporine. Additional studies examine the role of cyclosporine in necrotizing scleritis complicating rheumatoid arthritis. Concomitant administration of nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs and cyclosporine to rheumatoid arthritis patients resulted in increased short-term deterioration of renal function. Studies of patients with various autoimmune diseases showed an association of the mean, maximal, and cumulative doses of cyclosporine with biopsy-proven nephropathy. Cytarabine was tried at low doses in the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis with improvement in some patients.