Sir, It was truly enlightening and educative reading the editorial on dexamethasone pulse therapy in dermatology and the associated viewpoint by Prof. Pasricha who is widely regarded as the father of pulse therapy in India. Pulse therapy has altered the management and outcome of autoimmune diseases in general and pemphigus in particular. It has slowly but surely replaced the conventional dosing...

PURPOSE To evaluate the effect of high-dose intravenous steroid pulse therapy followed by 3-month oral steroid therapy for Graves' ophthalmopathy. METHODS We selected 41 Japanese patients (age range, 21-76 years; mean = 49 years) who had active Graves' ophthalmopathy among 205 consecutive patients examined at Sapporo Medical University Hospital between 1997 and 1999. In a prospective study, w...

Background: Pulse therapy is a type of systemic management in which large amounts of medications are administered to patients in short time and intervals (e.g. weekly) to get the stronger effects of medication sooner and avoid long term use of them. Objective: To determine how therapy-resistant dermatology diseases respond to oral minipulse steroids . Methods: Articles with Mesh terms "pulse th...

Objective: Pemphigus vulgaris, a fatal autoimmune mucocutaneous disorder commonly seen involving the oral cavity, has since a long time remained a topic of concern regarding its treatment modalities. Pulse therapy, introduced in 1984, employs high-dose corticosteroids along with certain immunosuppressive agents and has gained wide popularity since the last three decades due to its advantage of ...

BACKGROUND The benefits of steroid therapy in immunoglobulin A nephropathy (IgAN) have not been established. METHODS The effect of steroids on kidney survival was retrospectively investigated in 702 patients with IgAN by multivariate analyses. RESULTS There were 295 men and 407 women. The median follow-up period was 62 months. One hundred and ninety-four patients were treated with oral ster...

PURPOSE Mycoplasma pneumoniae (M. pneumoniae) is one of the most common causes of community-acquired pneumonia in children. The clinical course is typically self-limited and benign; however, rare cases of severe pneumonia can develop despite appropriate antibiotic therapy. We studied the effects of methylprednisolone pulse therapy on severe refractory M. pneumoniae pneumonia in children. METH...

Autoimmune pancreatitis (AIP) is treatable with steroids, but relapse is frequent. The efficacy of steroid pulse therapy has been shown for various autoimmune diseases, but has not become established therapy. In this study, we reviewed the efficacy of steroid pulse therapy in 24 subjects who were diagnosed with AIP type 1 at our hospital. Patient characteristics, time-course of serum IgG4, and ...

AIM To report on the effectiveness of systemic steroid-pulse therapy in treating idiopathic choroidal detachment. CASE PRESENTATION Our patient developed idiopathic choroidal detachment after cataract surgery for pseudoexfoliation glaucoma and glaucoma filtration surgery. Systemic steroid-pulse therapy was performed, and the choroidal detachment resolved completely. CONCLUSION We suggest sy...

Periocular haemangiomas of infancy can cause severe and rapid ocular damage. Oral corticosteroids remain the front-line treatment to minimize the consequences of these haemangiomas. The aim of this report is to summarize our experience with pulse intravenous methylprednisolone as an alternative therapy for periocular haemangioma when visual prognosis is engaged. Fifteen infants, who presented p...