In this webinar from the Tuesday lunch with RITA series, organised in collaboration with EUVAS, Dr. Augusto Vaglio (pathogenesis) and Dr. Giacomo Emmi (treatment) talked about how they treat eosinophilic granulomatosis with polyangiitis (EGPA) by addressing the following points:
- New evidence-based guidelines have recently been published for the management of EGPA, addressing remission-induction and remission-maintenance treatment as well as therapies for relapses.
- Remission-induction treatment is tailored based on the presence or absence of organ-threatening manifestations. In patients with severe diseases, cyclophosphamide or, as an alternative, rituximab, should be added to glucocorticoids, whereas in patients with non-severe disease, glucocorticoids alone are generally used.
- For remission maintenance in patients with severe EGPA, rituximab, mepolizumab or traditional DMARDs should be used in combination with glucocorticoids. In patients with non-severe EGPA, glucocorticoids, alone or in combination with mepolizumab, should be used.
- Severe systemic relapses should be treated with rituximab or cyclophosphamide with glucocorticoids, whereas non-severe systemic and respiratory relapses can be treated by increasing the dose of glucocorticoids and/or adding mepolizumab.
- The therapeutic approach should be tailored in special populations such as children, elderly patients, women of child-bearing age and those with comorbidities; conversely, there is no current evidence that different phenotypes (i.e ANCA-positive versus ANCA-negative) need different approaches.
- New therapeutic strategies and sequential treatment (e.g rituximab and mepolizumab) are emerging for treating EGPA.
This webinar was chaired by:
Dr. Allyson Eagan
Prof. Alfred Mahr
Learn more about EUVAS (European Vasculitis Society) here: vasculitis.org/
Please check ern-rita.org/webinars for all recordings and information on future webinars.