Rituxamab

Rasmussen's encephalitis (RE) is a rare chronic inflammatory disease of the brain resulting in unilateral hemispheric atrophy with drug-resistant focal epilepsy associated with a variable degree of progressive hemiparesis and cognitive decline. The precise etiology of RE is unknown but presumed to have a neuroinflammatory pathobiological basis. Only surgery halts progression of the disease, but may occur at the expense of a fixed but otherwise inevitable neurological deficit. Therefore, the question of medical management is an important consideration...

We quantify the adsorption and desorption of a monoclonal immunoglobulin-G antibody, rituxamab (RmAb), on silica capillary surfaces using electrospray-differential mobility analysis (ES-DMA). We first develop a theory to calculate coverages and desorption rate constants from the ES-DMA data for proteins adsorbing on glass capillaries used to electrospray protein solutions. This model is then used to study the adsorption of RmAb on a bare silica capillary surface. A concentration-independent coverage of ≈4...

A decade of spectacular innovation in maintenance immunosuppression drugs has resulted in dramatic reductions in acute rejection and improvement in short and long term outcome after renal transplantation. However the new drugs continue to lack specificity, many require frequent therapeutic drug monitoring and all are associated with acute and chronic toxicities. The new biologic agents, monoclonal antibodies (chimeric, humanized, and fully human) and receptor-fusion proteins, lack immunogenicity, have long half-life and prolonged biologic effects, require intermittent administration and have minimal toxicity...

The chimeric anti-CD20 antibody rituxamab, as well as radiolabeled anti-CD20 monoclonal antibodies, have demonstrated significant activity against B-cell non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. Idiotype vaccination in remission may prevent relapse in follicular non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. The campath-1H antibody has activity in chronic lymphocytic leukemia, and additional unconjugated, radiolabeled, and drug-conjugated monoclonal antibodies (anti-CD45 and anti-CD33) have shown activity in acute myeloid leukemia. Adoptive cellular therapy is active against posttransplantation relapse and lymphoproliferative disorders in most patients, and complications of graft-versus-host disease may be controlled by suicide gene transfection of the donor lymphocytes...