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Abstract Immunosuppressive drugs and immunomodulating procedures can improve the quality of life in patients with immune-related neurologic diseases and can even be lifesaving if properly used to avoid deleterious or irreversible adverse effects. For the successful use of these drugs like intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIG), alone or in combination, the treating physician must be familiar with the drugs’mode of action and side effects, especially their interaction with each other or with other drugs. Further, the goals and the expectations of therapy must be defined, and the risk-benefit ratio of the drugs or procedures must be well understood and communicated to the patients. Improvement should be based on objective measurements of clinical parameters and a beneficial change in activities of daily living and not solely on a change in the laboratory test values. It is also fundamental, given the high cost of the new agents, to select a drug or procedure based on results from controlled trials or from well-conducted pilot studies. Drug interactions that result in adverse effects and conditions that may worsen a disease should be monitored throughout the course of therapy. |