Loading...
Most patients with severe aplastic anemia (SAA) are treated with horse antithymocyte globulin (ATG) and cyclosporine, a regimen that achieves a response rate of 60% to 70%. However, ATG is often associated with fever, serum sickness, and depression of blood counts, and cyclosporine leads to renal toxicity.
To examine whether patients with SAA would benefit from alemtuzumab — a humanized anti-CD52 monoclonal antibody and potent lymphocytotoxic agent that has produced remissions in diverse autoimmune diseases — investigators performed three separate studies. The studies tested alemtuzumab (10 mg infused over 2 hours daily for 10 days) alone or against rabbit ATG (3.5 mg daily for 5 days) or horse ATG plus cyclosporine (10 mg/kg/day adjusted to…