Plasmapheresis therapy for bullous pemphigoid

Management of autoimmune bullous diseases: Pharmacology and therapeutics

“…103,104 It is used in severe cases in association with immunosuppressive drugs. In 1984 Roujeau et al reported the cases of 41 patients with BP in whom plasmapheresis had a steroidsparing effect.…”

A Case of Bullous Pemphigoid Successfully Treated by Plasmapheresis: Assessment of the Change in Titers of Circulating Antibodies by Immunoblotting and Enzyme‐Linked Immunosorbent Assay

“…The filtration membrane used in DFPP can threoretically remove 70% of IgG antibodies with a molecular weight of 150,000. Some studies have indicated that plasmapheresis therapy is a steroid‐sparing treatment for BP (2, 10). However, in the treatment of BP, plasmapheresis is used only for patients with severe, progressive disease, that is unresponsive to other therapies, because plasmapheresis is expensive and time consuming, and it has some side effects ( e.g., fever, chills, hypotension, and difficulties with venous access) (1, 2, 10).…”

“…Plasmapheresis has been used for the treatment of autoimmune bullous diseases, principally for patients with high titers of autoantibodies who are uncontrollable by systemic steroid treatment (1, 2).…”

Use of intravenous immunoglobulin therapy in autoimmune blistering diseases

“…These drugs may be used as a single agent or in combination with others. In instances where these drugs are not effective, intravenous corticosteroids, intravenous cyclophosphamide, or plasmapheresis has been used [121][122][123][124][125].…”