Treatments

This drug is still considered investigational and is not generally available. It has been studied in small numbers of patients with Churg-Strauss syndrome and hypereosinophilic syndromes, and although it has appeared safe in these studies, the numbers of patients are too small to draw any conclusions about safety and side…...

Prednisone needs to be modified in the liver in order to be active, but methylprednisolone (Medrol) and prednisolone do not. Theoretically, some people, whether due to liver disease or a deficiency in the liver enzyme, may not convert prednisone to its active metabolite efficiently and would do better on a…...

Intravenous immunologlobulin (IVIG) is not often used to treat vasculitis. IVIG is the purified antibody-containing part of the blood proteins obtained from blood donations. IVIG is most often used in treating vasculitis when a patient with active vasculitis also has an infection. Unlike most other treatments used in treating vasculitis,…...

Many patients with rheumatoid arthritis have stayed on this drug for 20 years or more. It used to be recommended that every patient who reached a certain lifetime dose of methotrexate receive a liver biopsy, but that is no longer recommended by rheumatology organizations as long as blood tests related…...

Yes. The risk of infection is higher when the WBC count is low, but patients with normal WBC counts are still at increased risk, and not everyone with a low WBC count (less than 3-4) gets infections. Usually the dose of Cytoxan is reduced when the WBC count falls below…...