Human intravenous immunoglobulins: a promising treatment for recurrent pericarditis

This editorial refers to ‘Human Intravenous Immunoglobulins for recurrent pericarditis: a multicentre cohort study’, by V. Collini et al., https://doi.org/10.1093/eurjpc/zwaf250. Recurrent pericarditis (RP) is the most problematic and challenging sequelae after a first episode of acute pericarditis. In the context of RP, an unfortunate subset of patients, which is estimated at 5–10% of the entire RP population, depict multiple recurrences with an average disease duration of approximately 5 years.1,2 Despite the overall good long-term prognosis in terms of survival and development of permanent pericardial constriction requiring radical pericardiectomy (which notably appears in less than 1% of cases), patients with refractory to treatment RP (or the so-called colchicine-resistant glucocorticoid-dependent RP) often develop serious complications related to the chronic steroid administration. Accordingly, affected patients face a severe impairment of their quality of life, which is further exacerbated by frequent hospitalizations, emergency department visits, the need for repeated diagnostic tests, and loss of working hours. In addition to these distressing consequences, the cost required for managing these patients by the healthcare system is significant.