rituximab-based treatment, hcv replication, and hepatic flaresrituximab-based治疗丙肝病毒复制和肝耀斑.pdf

Hindawi Publishing Corporation Clinical and Developmental Immunology Volume 2012, Article ID 945950, 5 pages doi:10.1155/2012/945950 Review Article Rituximab-Based Treatment, HCV Replication, and Hepatic Flares Evangelista Sagnelli,1, 2 Mariantonietta Pisaturo,1, 2 Caterina Sagnelli,3 and Nicola Coppola1 1 Section of Infectious Diseases, Department of Public Medicine, Second University of Naples, 80131 Naples, Italy 2 Division of Infectious Diseases, AORN Sant’Anna e San Sebastiano di Caserta, 81100 Caserta, Italy 3 Department of Clinical and Experimental Medicine and Surgery “F. Magrassi e A. Lanzara”, Second University of Naples, 80131 Naples, Italy Correspondence should be addressed to Evangelista Sagnelli, evangelista.sagnelli@unina2.it Received 26 April 2012; Accepted 20 June 2012 ¨ Academic Editor: Jurg Schifferli Copyright © 2012 Evangelista Sagnelli et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Rituximab, a chimeric mouse-human monoclonal antibody directed to the CD20 antigen expressed on pre-B lymphocytes and mature lymphocytes, causes a profound B-cell depletion. Due to its peculiar characteristics, this drug has been used to treat oncohaematological diseases, B cell-related autoimmune diseases, rheumatoid arthritis, and, more recently, HCV-associated mixed cryoglobulinaemic vasculitis. Rituximab-based treatment, however, may induce an increased replication of several viruses such as hepatitis B virus, cytomegalovirus, varicella-zoster virus, echovirus, and parvovirus B19. Recent data suggest that rituximab-based chemotherapy induc