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When prescribing hydroxychloroquine, how do you explain the mechanism of action and how this translates into clinical benefit for the patient?
There are studies that show hydroxychloroquine inhibits autophagy (the orderly degradation and recycling of the contents of the cytoplasm for the cell to continue). Does limiting autophagy on a cellular level achieve clinical improvement in patients with SLE?
Answer from: at Community Practice
Dr. @Thomas,
I appreciate your expansive answer concerning autophagy. There is not much discussion in the rheumatology community with respect to the role of autophagy with SLE clinical manifestation and treatment.
There is literature that belimumab decreases autophagy. And since type 1 interferon ...
Answer from: at Community Practice
Dr. @John Lavery,
We know that the immune system has many pathways, but all components work in tandem. It would be a huge misjudgment to focus on only one aspect (autophagy) of the complex immunopathology of a disease like lupus and try to make sense of how to explain it with exercise and fasting, ...
You explained it very elegantly, Dr. Thomas. I ge...
I simply tell patients that Plaquenil is an immuno...