Successful treatment of refractory TTP

PubMed, the Internet portal of biomedical and life sciences literature, indexed an interesting article, entitled Successful treatment of refractory thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura with cyclosporine and corticosteroids in a patient with systemic lupus erythematosus and antibodies to ADAMTS13. (Intern Med. 2007;46(13):1033-7). Authors are Enami T Suzuki T Ito S et al., from the Clinical Immunology, Advanced Biomedical Applications, Graduate School of Comprehensive Human Sciences, University of Tsukuba. A 46-year-old woman with systemic lupus erythematosus was hospitalized for purpura, hematochezia and hematuria. One week after admission, she developed grand mal seizures and coma and was diagnosed with thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura (TTP) when fragmented red cells were found on the peripheral blood smear. She was refractory to methylprednisolone pulse therapy and plasma exchange, but administration of cyclosporine induced remission without adverse effects. We propose that cyclosporine may be an effective treatment for cases of refractory TTP. To access the full abstract of the article, click here.