Different dosages of intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIg) in treating immune thrombocytopenia with long-term follow-up of three years: Results of a prospective study including 167 cases

Abstract

This study compared the effects of different dosages of intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIg) against immune thrombocytopenia (ITP). A total of 167 patients, 91 adults and 76 children, with ITP, followed-up for three years in the case-control study, were divided into three subgroups according to the dosages of IVIg administered: group A (0.2 g/kg/day), group B (0.3 g/kg/day) and group C (0.4 g/kg/day). The therapeutic response in 91 adult patients did not differ significantly among the three groups of IVIg dosages (p = 0.459). The response rate of IVIg treatment in the three adult groups was 97.1% for group A, 97.2% for group B and 100% for group C. The mean time for raising platelets to 30 × 10⁹/L in group A was 2.5 days, group B 3.2 days and group C 2.9 days (p = 0.324). The median IVIg consumption in group A was 0.83 g/kg, group B 1.22 g/kg and group C 1.64 g/kg (p < 0.01). Similar results were shown in the children groups. The follow-up results showed no significant difference of clinical outcome between groups A, B and C. In conclusion, low-dose IVIg treatment is shown to be as effective as high-dose regimen without increasing the risk of developing the patients into chronic ITP conditions, suggesting that ITP patients could be treated more cost-effectively by lower conventional dosage of IVIg regimen.

• Bleeding score
• immune thrombocytopenia
• intravenous immunoglobulin
• low-dose
• platelet count

Declaration of interest

This work was supported in part by grants from National Natural Science Foundation of China (81270581, 81300385, 81260091, 81170474), Ministry of Health (201202017) and Tianjin Municipal Science and Technology Commission (12JCQNJC08000), Yunnan Provincial Science and Technology Department-Kunming Medical University Joint Special Foundation (2013FB152), High-level health technical leader training plan of Yunnan Province (D-201216) and Young prospective academic and technical leader training plan of Yunnan Province (2013HB088).

We declare that we have no conflict of interest.