Journal of Clinical and Investigative Dermatology
Review Article
Therapeutic Apheresis and/or Monoclonal Antibodies in Dermatological Diseases
Bambauer R1* and Schiel R2
1Formerly: Institute for Blood Purification Germany
2Inselklinik Heringsdorf GmbH, Germany
*Address for Correspondence: Bambauer R, Frankenstras, 66424 Homburg, Germany, Tel. 0049-6841/68500, Fax: 0049/ 6841/6856; E-mail: rolf.bambauer@t-online.de
Submission: 2 December, 2020;
Accepted: 30 December, 2020;
Published: 3 January, 2021
Copyright:© 2021 Bambauer R, et al. This is an open access article
distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits
unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the
original work is properly cited.
Abstract
Therapeutic Apheresis (TA) is increasingly applied as support treatment
in dermatological diseases especially in severe and/or refractory autoimmune
bullous diseases. Since the pathogenetic relevance of autoantibodies could defined
in various diseases, disease-specific adsorbers have been developed. Especially,
dermatologic immune-mediated diseases respond to TA. The different TA methods,
such as Therapeutic Plasma Exchange (TPE), Immunoadsorption (IA), adsorptive
cytapheresis, Extracorporeal Photopheresis (ECP) were discussed elsewhere
[1,2]. Dermatologic immune-mediated diseases represent a heterogeneous group
of disorders associated with circulating autoantibodies against distinct adhesion
molecules of the skin and/or mucosa. The incidence of autoimmune blistering
skin diseases for example in Germany has doubled during in the last 10 years, to
about 25 new cases per million humans per year, because of improved diagnostic
techniques as well as the age of the population [3]. The incidence of Pemphigus
Vulgaris (PV) in Europe is one to two cases per million humans per year, and
80% of pemphigus patients have PV [4]. Bulbous Pemphigoid (BP) is the most
common type of subepidermal autoimmune blistering skin disease in Europe, with
an incidence of about 13 cases per million humans per year.