haematologica/journal of hematology vol. 88(07):july 2003 837 Beguin Research Director of the National Fund for Scientific Research (FNRS, Belgium). This work was supported by grants from “La Fondation BonjeanOleffe”, “L’Association sportive contre le cancer”, “Le Fonds de Recherche Scientifique du CHU Sart-Tilman” and the National Fund for Scientific Research (FNRS, Belgium). Correspondence: Y...

Treatment of patients with Systemic Lupus Erythematosus (SLE) who have active disease refractory to current therapeutic strategies continues to be a real challenge. Here, we propose that the classic definition of refractory SLE patients - failure to achieve adequate response to the standard of care - should be further refined to incorporate the dimension of adequate drug exposure. Inter-individ...

This paper presents our experience to date with using a cyclosporine formulation Equoral (IVAX Pharmaceuticals) together with mycophenolate mofetil plus a steroid immunosuppressive regimen in the treatment of de novo renal transplant recipients. Ten cadaveric donor renal transplant recipients of mean age 51.6 years (range 37-66) were followed up over 6 months for the development of rejection at...

Backgrounds/Aims Long-term immunosuppression regimens after liver transplantation (LT) are rarely reported in detail. We aimed to provide information on actual long-term immunosuppression regimens through this cross-sectional study. Methods Our institutional LT database was searched for adult patients who underwent primary LT operation from 2000 to 2016. We identified 3620 live recipients wit...

OBJECTIVES To assess the efficacy and tolerability of mycophenolate mofetil (MMF) in six patients with myositis refractory to conventional immunosuppressive therapy. METHODS Six patients were identified from hospital notes. All had previously failed to respond to other immunosuppressive treatments. Efficacy was measured as changes in muscle strength, creatine kinase (CK) levels and prednisolo...

In the past two decades, many new small molecules with immunosuppressive properties have been discovered. These xenobiotic drugs have been particularly developed for clinical use in organ transplantation to prevent allograft rejection. During clinical investigation in transplantation, some of these substances have also been observed to provide therapeutic efficacy in inflammatory skin disorders...

BACKGROUND Mycophenolate mofetil (MMF) and tacrolimus (TAC) are more potent than conventional immunosuppressive drugs, i.e. azathioprine, cyclosporin and prednisolone, and may be associated with an increase in the incidence of infections in the post-transplantation (post-tx) period. The aim of this study was to determine if the use of either or both of MMF and TAC for immunosuppression in renal...

Mycophenolate mofetil (MMF) is an immunosuppressive medication utilized in the management of both autoimmune and solid organ transplant patients. Diarrhea is a common gastrointestinal side effect of MMF, but more severe forms of GI symptoms are described in renal transplant patients with a distinct pattern of histopathologic change, similar to graft-versus-host disease or Crohn's disease. This ...

PURPOSE This study aims to determine uveitis specialists' practice patterns, preferences, and perceptions of corticosteroid-sparing therapies for the initial treatment of chronic noninfectious uveitis. METHODS A survey was distributed to the American Uveitis Society and Proctor email listservs in order to restrict the respondents to specialists who likely have extensive experience in the use ...

BACKGROUND Because of the rarity of neuro-ophthalmic sarcoidosis, there are no therapeutic guidelines based on evidence-based medicine for this disorder. EVIDENCE ACQUISITION Review of literature combined with personal experience. RESULTS Corticosteroids are the preferred initial therapy for neuro-ophthalmic sarcoidosis. If patients cannot tolerate the requisite dose of corticosteroid neede...