High dose intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIG) treatment in patients with lupus nephritis

Abstract

High dose intravenous immunoglobulins (IVIG) have become an important treatment modality for some immune mediated diseases. We investigated the effect of high dose IVIG in systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE). Eight patients with active renal involvement disease (all of them female, mean age; 25.8 ± 8.1, mean disease duration; 30.5 ± 16.1 months) were given 400 mg/kg/day 4. generation IVIG preparation (Octagam. Octapharma, Pharmazeutika Wien, Austria) during the days 1 to 5 and 21 to 25. Overall disease activity was measured by the SLAM score. The measured systemic lupus activity was declined from 19.0 to 4.38 (p