The efficacy and safety of low-dose rituximab in immune thrombocytopenia: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Rituximab has been frequently used as a second-line treatment for patients with immune thrombocytopenia (ITP). Recently, several studies have proposed low-dose (100 mg or 100mg/m(2) per week for 4 weeks) rituximab instead of the standard dose of 375mg/m(2) per week for 4 weeks to treat ITP patients. The aim of this review was to systematically evaluate the efficacy and safety of low-dose rituximab for patients with ITP. Pubmed, Web of Science, Cochrane Library and Embase were searched to identify the clinical studies published in full text or abstract that met the predefined inclusion criteria. Efficacy analysis was restricted to the studies enrolling five or more patients. While safety analysis was evaluated based on all the studies reported adverse events. Nine studies (329 patients) were included for effect assessment of low-dose rituximab treatment on the patients with ITP. The pooled overall response rate was 63% (95% CI, 0.54-0.71) while the pooled complete response was 44% (95% CI, 0.33-0.55). Thirty-one patients were reported to experience adverse effects associated with rituximab, among them 30 cases suffered mild to moderate side-effects (grade1-2). Only one patient developed into interstitial pneumonia (grade3). No death was reported. Low-dose rituximab exhibited a satisfactory efficacy and safety profile, indicating that this regimen is a promising therapy for ITP, and should be further investigated through randomized clinical trials with standard-dose rituximab.