Disappearance of bone marrow B cell clonal expansion in patients with type II hepatitis C virus-related cryoglobulinemic glomerulonephritis after clinical efficient rituximab therapy

摘要

Preliminary data provided encouraging results on efficacy and safety of B cell depletion with rituximab in active glomerulonephritis in the course of mixed cryoglobulinemia (MC).B cell oligomonoclonal expansion in peripheral blood and in bone marrow (BM) seems to be a key pathological and molecular feature in MC. Recently, renal involvement in MC has been associated with B cell clonal expansion in the BM. We report new data on the possible relationship between clinical efficacy of rituximab in MC nephritis and the disappearance of BM B cell clonal expansion after (month +6) rituximab administration demonstrated by molecular studies (fig I).