Belimumab in refractory organizing pneumonia associated with systemic lupus erythematosus: a case report

Organizing pneumonia is an inflammatory lung entity that presents with a huge variety of clinical, radiological and pathological patterns. Organizing pneumonia can be idiopathic or secondary to other diseases. Corticosteroid therapy is usually the first-line treatment showing clinical improvement in most cases. This report presents the case of a 56-year-old woman with systemic lupus erythematosus who was diagnosed with an organizing pneumonia and showed a poor response to steroid and azathioprine treatment. We considered the use of belimumab, which resulted in excellent clinical and radiological outcomes.