Anti-CD 20 monoclonal antibody (rituximab) treatment for inflammatory ocular diseases

Rituximab Therapy for Refractory Idiopathic Scleritis

“…15 B-cell depletion with rituximab has been found beneficial in additional autoimmune conditions, such as systemic lupus erythematosus, GPA, and primary Sjö gren syndrome (pSS). 9 Interestingly, in patients with RA, GPA, and pSS complicated with scleritis, the administration of rituximab, either as monotherapy or in combination with corticosteroids or immunosuppressive agents, has specifically shown a favorable outcome of the eye involvement. [3][4][5][6][7] In these patients, rituximab has been administered using either the lymphoma dose regime (consisting of 4 weekly infusions of 375 mg/m 2 ) or the RA approach (2 infusions of 1 g separated by 14 days).…”

“…8 More frequently, rituximab is associated with infusion reactions. 9 We report 2 cases of refractory idiopathic scleritis, which subsided with a single course of rituximab.…”

Treatment Approach for Juvenile Idiopathic Arthritis-Related Uveitis: 2012 Update

“…Было показано, что РТБ -эффективное и безопас-ное средство при лечении воспалительных заболеваний, в частности наиболее агрессивных и угрожающих поте-рей зрения вариантов воспаления и увеита [54].…”

Can Rituximab Induce Long-Term Disease Remission in Patients with Intra-Ocular Non-Infectious Inflammation?

“…Following a single treatment course of 2 infusions, most patients responded by lasting disease remission, with resolution of symptoms and reduction or discontinuation of other immunosuppressive agents [32,33]. Treatment of ocular involvement was also explored in several small case series demonstrating a positive effect [34,35,36]. In a case series of 10 JIA patients with ocular involvement, a single treatment course of 2 rituximab 1,000-mg infusions, 2 weeks apart, resulted in uveitis remission in 7 of these patients [34].…”

“…There is some evidence that it may be used as an intravitreal agent in cases of relapsing primary vitreoretinal lymphoma [24,25], and it has been further reported for use in cases of peripheral ulcerative keratitis [26,27,28], scleritis related to rheumatoid arthritis and GPA [29,30,31], juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA) [32,33,34,35,36], orbital inflammation [37], ocular cicatricial pemphigoid [38] and BD [11,39,40,41]. Most reports suggest their patients achieved clinical remission, in some reflecting quiescent disease with treatment [11,29,31,35,36,42,43]. According to the Standardization of Uveitis Nomenclature, the definition of remission is reserved for inactive disease for at least 3 months after discontinuing all treatments for eye disease [44].…”