Reply To: rituxin (again)

Anonymous
March 24, 2012 at 12:48 am

One thing to keep in mind in CIDP treatments is the dosage amounts. Most of these drugs, including Rituxan, don’t undergo clinical trials for CIDP. So when you hear the 1 in 1000 number, you have to wonder what dosage amounts they were getting, and how it compares to what you will be getting.

For example, I found info on the FDA website that says out of roughly 100,000 Rheumatoid Arthritis patients exposed to Ritxuan, only 3 ended up getting PML: http://www.fda.gov/downloads/Safety/MedWatch/SafetyInformation/SafetyAlertsforHumanMedicalProducts/UCM187792.pdf

Since RA is also auto-immune, it’s likely that your dosage amounts would be similar to the recommended amounts for RA.

On the scale of CIDP treatments, I would say Rituxan does seem a bit more dangerous compared to others. For me personally, I would make sure I tried Prednisone, IVIG, Plasma Exchange, and Imuran before I gave Rituxan a shot.