Timing is essential: Humoral and cellular responses to SARS-CoV-2 vaccination in a cohort of patients with auto-immune diseases treated with rituximab.

ABSTRACT: Rituximab (RTX), an anti CD20 monoclonal antibody, is now a gold standard treatment for several auto-immune and chronic inflammatory diseases. Receiving RTX exposes patients to more severe infections as vaccinations become virtually inefficient in terms of B cell responses. During the COVID-19 crisis, RTX-exposed patients exhibited more severe forms of the disease, and in some cases, the introduction of RTX was delayed or avoided to protect patients as much as possible against SARS-CoV-2 infections. We retrospectively collected cellular and humoral responses from thirteen patients with dermatological and rheumatological autoimmune diseases who had been vaccinated after receiving RTX. Memory T cells subsets from patients that exposed to RTX showed few differences when compared to a cohort o

SUBMITTER: Gallais Serezal I 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11425176 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature