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What blood parameters should be measured post rituximab infusion?

greeneagledown

Senior Member
Messages
213
Hi,

What blood parameters should be measured post rituximab infusion, and how frequently should these values be monitored? Neutrophils?

Thank you.

I'm not a doctor and this is not medical advice, but speaking generally, patients on Rituximab regularly get complete blood counts w/differential. Patients also regularly get non-specific antibody levels tested -- IgA, IgG, and IgM -- to make sure the body's "good" antibodies are not getting too low. Finally, patients generally get their B-lymphocyte levels tested regularly to ensure that the drug is actually doing what it is supposed to do by keeping b-cells depleted, and to see when b-cells come back to decide if and when to do additional infusions.

@Jonathan Edwards, tell me if I've missed anything.
 

Jonathan Edwards

"Gibberish"
Messages
5,256
Reason would be desire to avoid late onset (or any onset) neutropenia....Thanks

If you want to check for neutropenia then yes, check neutrophils. However, neutropenia following rituximab is usually transient and to be sure to pick it up on a blood test you would probably need to measure neutrophils every week. Nobody does that. In reality one assumes that if the neutropenia is severe enough to cause symptoms the patient will report those. There is nothing as far as we know that will prevent the neutropenia. Probably the only sensible thing is to be aware that a sever sore throat or other infection is a reason to get a blood count checked.