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Incidence of reactive amyloidosis associated with rheumatic diseases is markedly decreasing1 as the presence of organ failure such as end-stage renal disease.2 However, we still encounter new cases of amyloidosis. While anti-TNF-α therapy may be effective in disease modifying antirheumatic drug (DMARD) resistant cases of amyloidosis, there are yet patients whose disease does not respond to that treatment.3 ,4
We searched for reports on tocilizumab (TCZ), an anti-interleukin-6 receptor (anti-IL-6R) antibody, as treatment for reactive amyloidosis registered in the PUBMED. Altogether six such cases were found with encouraging treatment results.3–8 All the reports are based on single case reports with limited follow-up data. We present over 1-year experience on five patients who were treated with the drug for this indication. One of the patients was included in our preliminary report of the effect of …
Footnotes
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Contributors All the authors have given substantial contribution to: conception and design, or analysis and interpretation of data, drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content, final approval of the version to be published.
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Competing interests ICMJE conflicts of interest for each author of this manuscript has been uploaded.
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Ethics approval Provided by the Ethics committee of Rheumatism Foundation Hospital, Heinola, Finland.
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Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.