A single infusion of rituximab in patients with recent-onset generalised myasthenia gravis greatly reduces the need for rescue treatment or hospitalisation compared with placebo, new research shows.

Swedish neurologists say the biologic is also associated with minimal disease manifestations despite low corticosteroid doses in the short to medium term.

Rituximab is considered an “early” therapeutic in some patients with muscle-specific kinase positive myasthenia gravis, based on international consensus guidance, but its efficacy in new-onset disease is unknown.

“Theoretically, rituximab started early after disease onset might impede the build-up of a disease-associated plasma cell pool that otherwise would escape targeting,” the authors write in JAMA Neurology.