Intravenous immunoglobulin treatment in chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy

Patients with a chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy (CIDP) may respond to treatment with corticosteroids and to plasmapheresis, which was demonstrated in controlled clinical studies. In an uncontrolled study it was found that 13/17 CIDP patients had a rapid and clinical important improvement after infusion of Fresh Frozen Plasma (FFP). A beneficial response was also seen after-mtravenous rmmunoglobulin (Mg) treatment. The aims of this study were: - to evaluate the clinical effectiveness of Mg in CIDP patients, - to define clinical and inrmunological factors associated with improvement after Mg in CIDP patients and - to investigate immunological mechanisms involved in the response to Mg treatment.