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What maintenance regimen do you use for a patient with lupus cerebritis?

Lupus cerebritis with transverse myelitis, CVA on imaging, responded to pulse steroids and 6 months of cyclophosphamide IV. What would be the preferred maintenance regimen in this scenario? I understand options are mycophenolate 3 g daily vs azathioprine 2 mg/kg. Is there any data for one over the other?
4 Answers
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Rheumatology · Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences (USUHS)
Answered on · Updated on

I prefer a mycophenolate analogue (MPA, usually mycophenolate mofetil, MMF, but prefer mycophenolic acid if on a PPI, which causes reduced MMF bioavailability, or if MMF intolerant) over azathioprine (AZA) for maintenance.

Reasoning is that MPAs have shown better efficacy in improving outcomes and pr...

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Rheumatology · University of California (San Francisco) School of Medicine
Answered on

This is a patient with ‘lupus cerebritis’ and transverse myelitis. I would consider the diagnosis of neuromyelitis optica spectrum disorder in this patient and check for the presence of autoantibodies against aquaporin-4. Optic neuritis is present only in two-thirds of the patients during the diseas...

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Rheumatology · MUSC Health
Answered on

As far as I am aware, and after performing a literature review, there are no studies comparing the benefits of mycophenolate vs azathioprine. Personal preference is to use mycophenolate unless pregnancy is a consideration, when azathioprine would be preferred. I would certainly use one or the other ...

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Rheumatology · University of Nevada - Las Vegas
Answered on

Either mycophenolate or azathioprine are reasonable options; there is no data that would suggest one over the other for treatment of CNS lupus/TM. However, extrapolating data from the LN studies suggests that relative to what is observed with azathioprine, there is greater efficacy in relapse preven...

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