Abstract
Filtration Leukocytapheresis (LCAP) is a treatment of removing responsible leukocytes from the peripheral blood.
Although several clinical trials have demonstrated the efficacy and safety of LCAP in refractory cases of rheumatoid arthritis (RA), it remains unclear how patient characteristics are applicable for LCAP in RA therapeutic strategy. Here, we retrospectively reviewed a total of thirteen RA patients with refractory to conventional disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs (DMARDs) and tumor necrosis factor inhibitors, who were treated with LCAP while staying at our hospital, and studied the relationship between the patient background and the efficacy of LCAP.
8 patients were eligible for twelve-week follow-up assessment after LCAP treatment. The efficacy of LCAP was assessed by 3 evaluation items of CRP, swollen joint count, and tender joint count. As a result, at least 36.4％ of patients achieved 20％ improvement of all items and 27.3％ achieved 50％ improvement, which showed satisfactory results.
The background of patients treated with LCAP were 1) having relatively advanced joint destruction, 2) refractory to conventional DMARDs therapy, 3) resistant to or failed with methotrexate due to ineffectiveness or its side effect, suggesting that patients filling these characteristics were applicable for LCAP.
