Reply To: Anemia Due To CIDP?

Could it be the Rituxan has helped my CIDP in addition to my anemia?

Rituxin has been reported to improve CIDP in patients who do not respond to standard treatments, usually IVIG or Plasmapheresis (PE). In other words, since a good percentage of CIDP patients do respond, there is a limited supply of candidates to try Rituxin. And, no doubt, an even smaller subset of doctors willing to use Rituxin. Further the issue is clouded when the Rituxin studies include CIDP patients with IgM monoclonal gammopathy and no anti-MAG reactivity.

In the past, others on this site have reported using rituxin. Lori222 and Norb come to mind.

For example, there is this from Norb filed away in the forum history circa 2007: “Yesterday I had my first Rituxan treatment with the new Medicare approved diagnosis of “B-cell lymphoma” which appears to be the underlying cause of my CIDP with antiMAG IgM. Everything went well, 3 more weekly treatments to come.”

Consider looking at this website:

http://cancertreatmenttoday.org/rituxan-in-chronic-demyelinating-polyneuropathy-cdip-pro/

Finally, it is my understanding that Rituxin is one of the drugs used in the Stem Cell Transplant (SCT) clinical trial up at Chicago’s Northwestern University. Cytoxin is the other.