Anti-CD20-mediated B-cell depletion in autoimmune diseases: successes, failures and future perspectives

Etienne Crickx1, Jean-Claude Weill2, Claude-Agnès Reynaud2

  • 1Institut Necker Enfants Malades, Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale U1151/Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique UMS 8253, Université Paris Descartes, Sorbonne Paris Cité, Paris, France; Service de Médecine Interne, Centre National de Référence des Cytopénies Auto-immunes de L'adulte, Hôpital Henri Mondor, Assistance Publique Hôpitaux de Paris, Université Paris Est Créteil, Créteil, France.

Kidney International
|April 2, 2020
PubMed

B-cell depletion with anti-CD20 monoclonal antibodies is widely used for the treatment of autoimmune diseases. This review will discuss mechanisms contributing to success or failure of B-cell depletion therapy in antibody-mediated autoimmune diseases. It will also explain how key information about disease pathogeny can be provided by the different outcomes observed after B-cell depletion therapy. These findings provide the basis for future innovative therapeutic strategies aiming at an optimized B cell and/or plasma cell depletion to increase long-term disease remission.

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