Eighteen patients (15 men, three women; age range 30 to 71 years, mean 45.8 years) with multifocal motor neuropathy treated with high dose intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIg) were evaluated for nine to 48 months (mean follow up 25.3 months). The median time between onset of multifocal motor neuropathy and treatment was 5.8 years. The dose of IVIg was 0.4 g/day for three to five days. The interval...

INTRODUCTION Intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIG) therapy is an effective treatment in patients with different diseases. This product must comply with all the regulatory requirements established by the World Health Organization and the European Pharmacopoeia for clinical tolerance, therapeutic efficacy, and viral safety. Although IVIG are effective and safe products, in some patients they may caus...

Enhanced erythrocyte sequestration is one of the very few major adverse effects of intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIg). IVIg contains high molecular weight IgG complexes ( approximately 300 kDa) which, in the presence of serum, mimic immune complexes by activating complement, binding to CR1 of red blood cells (RBC) (CD35) and mediating erythrophagocytosis. Four of seven patients undergoing IVIg t...

Appropriate therapy during the acute phase of Kawasaki disease to prevent large coronary artery lesions (CAL) has not been established. The aim of this retrospective study was to investigate the usefulness of an initial single intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIG) therapy. In this study, I included a total of 200 pediatric patients who had received 2g/kg/day IVIG therapy for Kawasaki disease betwee...

Human intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIg) preparations are increasingly used for the treatment of autoimmune diseases. Earlier work demonstrated the presence of autoantibodies against Fas in IVIg, suggesting that IVIg might be able to induce caspase-dependent cell death in Fas-sensitive cells. In this study, we demonstrate that sialic acid-binding Ig-like lectin 9 (Siglec) represents a surface mo...

PURPOSE We conducted a study to determine which factors may be useful as predictive markers in identifying Kawasaki disease (KD) patients with a high risk of resistance to intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIG) and developing coronary artery lesions (CAL). METHODS We enrolled 287 patients in acute phase of KD at a single center. The demographic, clinical and laboratory data were collected retrospe...

Objective: To assess the evidence for the efficacy of IV immunoglobulin (IVIg) to treat neuromuscular disorders. Methods: The MEDLINE, Web of Science, and EMBASE databases were searched (1966–2009). Selected articles were rated according to the American Academy of Neurology’s therapeutic classification of evidence scheme; recommendations were based on the evidence level. Results and Recommendat...

Pooled normal polyspecific IgG for therapeutic use (IVIg) contain anti-idiotypes against idiotypic determinants expressed by autoantibodies from patients with a variety of autoimmune diseases. In the present study, antiidiotypes in IVIg are shown to recognize a cross-reactive idiotype on human anti-thyroglobulin (TG) autoantibodies, that was defined by heterologous antiidiotypic antibodies, ter...

OBJECTIVE To assess the evidence for the efficacy of IV immunoglobulin (IVIg) to treat neuromuscular disorders. METHODS The MEDLINE, Web of Science, and EMBASE databases were searched (1966-2009). Selected articles were rated according to the American Academy of Neurology's therapeutic classification of evidence scheme; recommendations were based on the evidence level. RESULTS AND RECOMMEND...

BACKGROUND Intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIg) has been used to treat a variety of autoimmune disorders including multiple sclerosis (MS); however its mechanism of action remains elusive. Recent work has shown that interleukin-11 (IL-11) mRNAs are upregulated by IVIg in MS patient T cells. Both IVIg and IL-11 have been shown to ameliorate experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE), an animal...