Rituximab leads to long remissions in patients with chronic immune thrombocytopenia

الملخص EN

Objectives: To assess the response rate and duration of response in patients with chronic immune thrombocytopenia (ITP) receiving rituximab.

Methods: We retrospectively analyzed 32 consecutive patients with chronic ITP who were treated in two tertiary centers in Oman.

Response assessment was based on the American Society of Hematology criteria.

Results: Nineteen patients (59%) had an initial response.

However, six of the 19 patients lost their response leaving 13 patients with long-lasting remissions.

The median age at diagnosis was 25 years (range 14–58).

The median time from diagnosis to rituximab therapy was 21 months.

The median follow-up after starting rituximab was 26 months.

The overall cumulative response rate was 59% (complete response 44%, partial response 15%) and the median time to respond was 30 days with a response rate of 44% at four weeks.

In all responders, the cumulative rate of loss of response was 32% with a median time to lose response of 54 months.

Conclusions: The use of rituximab in ITP achieves high response rate and long remission duration.

Our study was limited by the small sample size and further larger prospective studies are recommended.