7th International Immunoglobulin Conference: Immunomodulation

Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a debilitating autoimmune disease that is usually treated aggressively to slow the rate of joint destruction. The therapeutic strategy used at the French centre, described here, is to use the non-biological disease-modifying drug, methotrexate, as first-line therapy and to add biological agents as second-line treatment. The two other autoimmune diseases discussed in this session were immunobullous skin diseases, and secondary recurrent miscarriage (RM). In the former conditions, low levels of pathogenic autoantibodies can be achieved with adjuvant intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIg) therapy, usually in combination with an immunosuppressant. Secondary RM has an autoimmune basis, as shown by high tumour necrosis factor (TNF)-α levels and specific human leucocyte antigen (HLA) polymorphisms. Although the mechanism is not yet known, IVIg may also be an effective treatment, despite the generally low doses used in published studies.