Immunoadsorption, Dexamethasone Pulse Therapy and Rituximab for Pemphigus
Status:
Completed
Trial end date:
2011-07-01
Target enrollment:
Participant gender:
Summary
Pemphigus is a severe autoimmune blistering disease mediated by circulating antibodies
against certain proteins important for maintaining skin integrity. Protein A immunoadsorption
is a dialysis-like technique selectively removing the antibodies from patient's blood.
Rituximab is a synthetic antibody capable of destroying B cells. B cells are responsible for
production of antibodies in the patients blood that, in turn, lead to clinical signs of
pemphigus. Dexamethasone pulse therapy is a high-dose short-term corticosteroid therapy that
may be used to suppress autoantibody production in pemphigus. While each of these three
therapies had been used to treat pemphigus, none was shown effective in all cases. The
hypothesis of this study is that a combination of protein A immunoadsorption, rituximab and
dexamethasone is more effective that either of these treatments alone in achieving a rapid
and durable improvement or cure in patients with pemphigus.