Long-term outcome in chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy patients treated with intravenous immunoglobulin: a retrospective study.

The objective of this retrospective study was to describe the short- and long-term patterns of IVIg use, safety, and response to treatment in patients with chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy (CIDP). Response to therapy was defined as an improvement of ≥ 1 point on the modified Rankin score at short- and mid-term visits. Patient status at long term was classified as remission, stability, or non-responder. Eighty-six patients were included; 60.5% responded at short term and 54.6% at mid-term. At long term, 25.6% of patients were in remission, 65.1% were stable, and 9.3% were non-responders. The only variable associated with remission was a better response during the first 6 months of follow-up. A significant percentage of patients did not require any additional drugs in the long term. This suggests that treatment effect or disease outcome may be stable over time, and treatment regimens should therefore be individualized to avoid overtreatment.