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Mizoribine, tacrolimus, and corticosteroid combination therapy successfully induces remission in patients with lupus nephritis
Clinical and Experimental Nephrology, 04/17/2012
Clinical Article
Kagawa H et al. – This pilot study suggests that mizoribine and tacrolimus treatment with corticosteroids is well tolerated and may prove to be an optimal alternative remission–inducing regimen for lupus nephritis (LN).
Methods- The authors retrospectively evaluated a combination treatment of mizoribine and tacrolimus with corticosteroids as induction therapy in eight newly diagnosed systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) patients with biopsy–proven LN.
- All patients were women, and their mean [standard deviation (SD)] age was 48.5 (20) years.
- All patients (100 %) had positive anti–double–stranded DNA (anti–dsDNA) antibody titers, and four (50.0 %) were nephrotic.
- Mean (SD) serum creatinine and daily proteinuria levels were 0.72 (0.4) mg/dl (range 0.33–1.55 mg/dl) and 4.56 (2.8) g (range 0.77–8.2 g), respectively.
- By month 2, significant improvements in the anti–dsDNA antibody titers, levels of proteinuria, serum albumin, and C3, and SLE disease activity index score were observed.
- By month 6, seven patients (87.5 %) were in complete remission, with normalized levels of both proteinuria and serum creatinine.
