Article Text
Statistics from Altmetric.com
Rituximab (RTX) is used for the treatment of lymphomas and rheumatoid arthritis (RA), achieving its beneficial effect through B cell depletion.1 2 Recently it has been suggested that the effect of RTX may be inhibited by the concomitant use of statins.3,–,5 B cell depletion is achieved through apoptosis of B cells induced by hypercrosslinking of CD20 molecules with RTX. This process depends on the presence and integrity of lipid rafts in the cell membrane.3 6 7 In vitro, Winiarska et al showed that cholesterol depletion reduces apoptosis by RTX, inhibiting B cell depletion.3 However, two clinical studies that investigated concomitant statin use in patients with lymphoma reported no diminished effect on patient survival.8 9 These patients …
Footnotes
-
Funding Funding of the Dutch affiliations of Wyeth Pharmaceuticals, Abbott Pharmaceuticals, Schering-Plough Corporation, Roche Pharmaceuticals, UCB Pharma and Bristol-Myers Squibb enabled the data collection for the DREAM cohort.
-
Competing interests The DREAM registry is funded by several pharmaceutical industries including Roche Pharmaceuticals.
-
Ethics approval The protocol of the DREAM registry has been approved by the responsible medical ethical committee.
-
Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.