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Mechanism of action of IVIG in ITP

Alan H Lazarus1

  • 1Canadian Blood Services, and The Toronto Platelet Immunobiology Group, Toronto, Ontario, Canada. lazarusa@smh.toronto.on.ca

Vox Sanguinis
|March 6, 2003
PubMed

IVIG is prepared from large pools of plasma from healthy donors and the IgG is present predominantly in monomeric form. It was first reported in 1981 by Dr. Paul Imbach that high doses of IVIG promote fast recovery of ITP in children. Despite extensive clinical use in a variety of autoimmune and inflammatory states, the mechanism of action of IVIG remains as yet incompletely understood. Several theories have been proposed to explain how administration of IVIG to individuals with ITP increases the platelet count. Following is an overview of some of the major theories.

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