Rituximab Treatment and Improvement of Health-Related Quality of Life in Patients With Pemphigus.

Abstract

Pemphigus is an autoimmune blistering disease that can negatively affect patients' lives. Assessing the impact of treatment from a patient's perspective using outcome assessment measures is important and relevant in trials of new pemphigus treatments including rituximab (RTX). We sought to evaluate the effect of RTX on health-related quality of life (HRQOL) in pemphigus patients and peruse the clinical relevance of the patient-reported outcomes. A retrospective cross-sectional study was designed with 96 pemphigus patients given RTX either 3 months earlier or in the last 2 weeks. The treatment was evaluated by patients using HRQOL assessment tools: 36-Item Short Form Survey (SF-36) and Dermatology Life Quality Index (DLQI). Another patient-reported assessment was the patient global assessment (PGA). We found that RTX administration in pemphigus patients led to rapid and notable improvement in HRQOL and patient-assessed measures.