Treatment of Pemphigus and Pemphigoid with Azathioprine

Dijk, T.J.A.Van; Velde, J. L. van der

doi:10.1159/000251868

Cited by 45 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 15 publications

(16 reference statements)

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“…As a basis for this study, a small number of previous reports describing AZP monotherapy to treat autoimmune bullous diseases were uncovered ( Table 2). [10][11][12][13] These reports suggested that AZP monotherapy had a positive effect on the patients (between two and eight cases) in each study, and most were successfully treated using AZP alone during the early stages of the disease, implying that the lesions were not extensive or spreading rapidly. 12 Our results demonstrate that seven out of 10 cases were controlled using AZP monotherapy.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 86%

Azathioprine monotherapy in autoimmune blistering diseases: A feasible option for mild to moderate cases

Kakuta

Yamagami

Funakoshi

et al. 2017

The Journal of Dermatology

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Azathioprine (AZP) is used as a corticosteroid (CS)-sparing medication to treat autoimmune blistering diseases. In this study, we examined the efficacy of AZP and the feasibility of using AZP monotherapy (without CS) to treat pemphigus and pemphigoid. We performed a retrospective study of 10 Japanese patients (seven with pemphigus and three with pemphigoid) with mild to moderate disease activity who had been treated using AZP. The treatment efficacy was evaluated based on decreases in the disease activity scores and autoantibody titers. The results demonstrate that seven out of 10 cases (70%) were treated successfully using AZP monotherapy with no severe adverse effects. The disease activity scores of the successfully-treated patients decreased to zero after 1-37.5 months (average, 11.9) and the average disease activity scores in these cases decreased significantly at 2 months (38.2 ± 36.6%) compared with the scores of the three patients who required additional systemic CS therapy (77.5 ± 3.5%) (P < 0.05). Additionally, the autoantibody titers of five cases treated successfully using AZP decreased by half at 6 months. In conclusion, our findings suggest that AZP monotherapy is a viable treatment option for mild to moderate pemphigus and pemphigoid.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 86%

Azathioprine monotherapy in autoimmune blistering diseases: A feasible option for mild to moderate cases

Kakuta

Yamagami

Funakoshi

et al. 2017

The Journal of Dermatology

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“…In three cases, azathioprine was successfully used as a monotherapy to induce and maintain clinical remission with a fall in antibody titre 30,34 . However, there is a latent period of at least 6 weeks before the effects of azathioprine are seen 29–31,34 and its use as monotherapy to induce remission should be reserved for mild cases only.…”

Section: Azathioprinementioning

confidence: 99%

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2003

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“…In the four institutions where patients were treated only with corticosteroids during these two periods of time, mortality de¬ creased by 48% to 84% in all institutions within a span of 10 to 20 years.110"15 Thus, improvement in survival during those years must, in whole or in part, be due to factors other than the introduction of adjuvant therapies, such as a diagnosis of a mild form of the disease, earlier initiation of therapy, and better treatment of complications.1 66 (20.5) 64(28.1) 35 (30) 12 (57) 13 (45) 25 (32) Unfortunately, there has been no further reduction in mortality during the past decade (average, 6.2%; range, 0% to 10%). Mortality continued to decline rap¬ idly in the 1960s and 1970s, to an average of 5.9%, coincident with the introduction of adjuvant therapy with immunosuppressive drugs.…”

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confidence: 99%