Immunoglobulin therapy

Doctors will look at how often you have an infection (infection frequency) and the levels of immunoglobulin in your blood just before an infusion, to make sure its adequate (trough level).  It’s a good idea to keep a diary of any infections you have. This will help your doctors and nurses understand how your immunoglobulin

The development of keloid is usually related to wound healing from incisional scars (due to surgery) rather than the infusion of a liquid into the subcutaneous space.  Some individuals will rarely get fibrosis (excess fibrous connective tissue), but not usually keloid at sites of infusion.  The fibrosis is where the connective tissue becomes thickened and

Itching at the site of injection is common.  Whether or not to treat this problem depends on the severity. If it is minor and lasts a few hours it may not be necessary to do anything.  For some people antihistamines work, topically (skin) applied steroids have been tried prior to the injection at the injection site,

There are a number of studies that have looked at the use of intravenous immunoglobulin therapy in Alzheimer Disease and there is no evidence of benefit. There are some rarer infections of the central nervous system, associated with loss of higher or cognitive function and good immunoglobulin treatment prevents these infections from taking hold. 

Veins can usually recover in the 3-week gap. If your veins do become brittle then your immunology team might recommend changing to another way of giving immunoglobulin such as subcutaneous infusion.

The risk of transmissible infection is as low as possible with an appropriate screening of donors and donor pools of plasma before they are manufactured into Ig, but the risk isn't zero. Plasma is treated in a few different ways to get rid of the infection. Depending on the manufacturer, the plasma will get a

Some patients have conditions that improve over time e.g. secondary antibody deficiency, in such cases taking someone off immunoglobulin to see if their own immunity is improved can be a very positive step. 

Immunoglobulin costs £40-65 per gram so a typical replacement dose is about £2300 on top of which there will also be administration charges and a day care fee. You would need to see a private doctor to discuss this with them. 

In some UK centres and parts of Europe patients with secondary antibody deficiency only have their IgG over the higher risk winter months and then have 6 months off.  The choice to do this must be based on full knowledge of the patient history.

The half- life of IgG is 17-21 days, so it takes about 3 weeks to fall by half from the level achieved on the day of infusion.  It is generally thought that 12 weeks are needed for all of an infused dose of IgG to disappear from the system, but that varies from individual to