Therapeutic plasma exchange in the treatment of neuroimmunologic disorders: Review of 50 cases

Acute inflammatory myelopathies

“…Plasma exchange was found to be helpful following failure of IV corticosteroid treatment, especially in patients with NMO or NMO spectrum disorders (independent of NMO-IgG positivity (Keegan et al, 2002;Paus et al, 2003;Bonnan et al, 2009) and in one patient in whom corticosteroids treatment was contraindicated (Yucesan et al, 2007).…”

“…EULAR recommendations also consider plasmapheresis for cases refractory to induction therapy (Neuwelt, 2003;Bartolucci et al, 2007). In addition, plasmapheresis may be beneficial in patients in whom corticosteroids are contraindicated (Yucesan et al, 2007). Taken together, these studies suggest that myelitis is associated with SLE in a minority of patients.…”

Current and emerging treatments for the management of myasthenia gravis

“…Of 166 patients with generalized MG from five studies, 78% reported improvement with plasma exchange 77–81. Three fairly large retrospective studies totaling 84 patients with generalized MG showed improvement in 96% of patients 82–84. Another retrospective study of plasma exchange versus intravenous immunoglobulin in myasthenic crisis, demonstrated that the ventilatory status at 2 weeks and functional outcome after 1 month was better in the plasma exchange group 85.…”

Clinical applications of therapeutic apheresis

“…The two most common neurologic indications for apheresis are myasthenia gravis (MG) and acute inflammatory polyneuropathy [i.e., Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS)] [77][78][79]. Multiple sclerosis (MS), neuromyelitis optica (NMO), acute disseminated encephalomyelitis, chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy, Lambert-Eaton myasthenic syndrome, paraproteinemic polyneuropathy, and cryoglobulinemic polyneuropathy are some other neurological conditions sometimes treated with apheresis [80][81][82].…”