[CIS PIDD] some help from Chile

[Jason W. Caldwell]

This is a very intriguing case to me.  I have a very similar patient.  She was diagnosed with MS, has had recurrent sepsis (most recent Enterobacter), and has autoimmune thyroid disease.  She came to me for recurrent sinus infection and a pneumonia with respiratory failure.  She too was on rituximab in the past and has had several cycles.  My patient also has had low IgG, but her IgA is low as well.  When I checked her tetanus and dip titers where normal, but she had no response to Pneumovax.  The other intriguing similarity is that she had <1% memory B cells.

Anyway, with this picture I did start Ig replacement and she has had a reduction in sinopulmonary infections.  She did have the recent Enterobacter sepsis that is unexplained, but really is over all better.  It will be hard to say for sure if the rituximab is the cause or she started with underlying CVID.  I also have several patients that have been on rituximab for a various reasons (Burkit's lymphoma, RA, Churg-Straus, lupus) that seem to not recover B cell numbers and/or function.  I treat these patients with Ig replacement.

I would vote for giving replacement Ig.
I will be interested to see what other say about your case and question.  I would also be interested in any comment about long term B cell dysfunction after rituximab.

Jason Caldwell
Wake Forest University.

________________________________
From: pagid-bounces at list.clinimmsoc.org [pagid-bounces at list.clinimmsoc.org] on behalf of patricia roessler vergara [patriciaroessler at gmail.com]
Sent: Wednesday, July 04, 2012 9:24 AM
To: pagid at list.clinimmsoc.org
Subject: [CIS PIDD] some help from Chile


Dear all:
I would appreciate some help about this case:
The patient is a woman 32 years old
She carries the diagnosis of multiple sclerosis (MS), onset at the age of 15. She was treated with avonex, IV methylprednisolone and IGIV. The first years of treatment she did well but finally she continued with flare ups, so she recevied Rituxan in 2007 with good response. She recevied another round of Rituxan in 2009.
Since rituxan she did not have flares of MS until december 2011 (the one that was treated with methylprednisolone) and she did not receive another treatments
She also has a history of other autoimmune diseases: Hashimoto´s tiroiditis at age 15, seronegative Sjögren disease, positive Scl-70 and ulcerative colitis.
Her mother has a history of antiphospholipid syndrome, psoriatic arthritis and Hashimoto´s tiroiditis
She has a neurogenic bladder which has resulted in recurrent urinary tract infections. In the last 18 months she has had 10 sepsis, some of urinary origin and other from an intestinal perforation secondary to Clostridium difficile enterocolitis.
She also has 3 sinusitis per year since the last 3 years.
I saw her last week for the first time and this are the immunologic labs until now:
Oct 2011: IgG  445 (nr: 639-1349), with normal IgM and IgA
May 2012: IgG 633, with normal IgM and IgA
I order other labs:
-       specific anti pneumococcal antibodies: pending
-       CD3, CD4, CD8, CD19 and CD56 all within normal range in number and percentage
-       Naive B lymphocytes CD19+IgD+CD27- :     82 (nr: 39-84)
-       Memory B lymphocytes without isotypic switch CD19+IgD+CD27+ : 1 (3-20)
-       Memory B lymphocytes with isotypic switch CD19+IgD-CD27+:  3 (6-35)

Abdomen scan: innumerable subcentimeter pulmonary nodules at the lung bases. Torax scan: pending

Questions:
-       Can this immunologic findings, specifically those concerning CD27, be secondary to Rituxan? Or we are talking about a common variable immunodeficiency that has result in all of her autoinmune diseases (I incline for this )
-       They are planning to give her Rituxan again because she is recurring in her neurologic symptoms. What do you think about that?
- Would you give her IGIV even though we still haven´t got the specific anti pneumococcal antibodies

Thanks,

Patricia Roessler
Immunologist
Chile