Got GBS? Had IVIG w/o improvement? You might need more.

    • Anonymous
      May 15, 2011 at 11:13 am

      See this article: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19938102

      [U]Pharmacokinetics of intravenous immunoglobulin and outcome in Guillain-Barré syndrome[/U]

      In which they state: “[I]…INTERPRETATION: After a standard dose of IVIg treatment, GBS patients show a large variation in pharmacokinetics, which is related to clinical outcome. This may indicate that patients with a small increase in serum IgG level may benefit from a higher dosage or second course of IVIg.[/I]”

      Basically, they measured serum (blood) levels of IVIG in 174 GBS patients. What did they find?

      “…In multivariate analysis adjusted for other known prognostic factors, a low DeltaIgG was independently associated with poor outcome (p = 0.022)….”

      What does it mean? multivariate means a lot of different ways. delta means change. serum IgG (DeltaIgG) means how much Ig is in the blood. Hence, a low delta IgG means their was little change in serum IG levels before and after treatment. The association is that if the serum IG levels did not change much, then there also was not much improvement.

      What is your serum IG level? Ask for a blood test prior to your next infusion. Mine ranges from 1553 to 2350.