Rituximab in the treatment of resistant lupus nephritis: therapy failure in rapidly progressive crescentic lupus nephritis

Objective *Deceased.The objective of this paper is to report the clinical outcome of B cell depletion therapy in 18 patients with refractory lupus nephritis (LN). Methods Eighteen patients received rituximab on an open-label basis with prospective evaluations. All patients had renal disease refractory to conventional immunosuppressive therapy, including intravenous cyclophosphamide (CyC). All patients fulfilled the revised ACR classification criteria for SLE. Rituximab was given as 2 × 1 g infusions with 500 mg iv CyC and 500 mg iv methylprednisolone, two weeks apart. Complete remission (CR) of nephritis at six months was defined as normal serum creatinine and serum albumin levels, inactive urine sediment, and proteinuria