Treatment of inflammatory complications in common variable immunodeficiency (CVID): current concepts and future perspectives

Introduction: Patients with common variable immunodeficiency (CVID) have a high frequency of inflammatory complications like autoimmune cytopenias, interstitial lung disease and enteropathy. These patients have poor prognosis and effective, timely, and safe treatment of inflammatory complications in CVID is essential, but guidelines and consensus on therapy are often lacking.

Areas covered: This review will focus on current medical treatment of inflammatory complications in CVID and point out some future perspectives based on literature indexed in PubMed. There are a number of good observational studies and case reports on treatment of specific complications, but randomized controlled trials are scarce.

Expert opinion: In clinical practice, the most urgent issues that need to be addressed are the preferred treatment of GLILD, enteropathy and liver disease. Treating the underlying immune dysregulation and immune exhaustion in CVID is an alternative approach that potentially could alleviate these and other organ-specific inflammatory complications. Therapies of potential interest and wider use in CVID include mTOR-inhibitors like sirolimus, JAK-inhibitors like tofacitinib, the monoclonal IL-12/23 antibody ustekinumab, the anti-BAFF antibody belimumab and abatacept. For all inflammatory complications, there is a need for prospective therapeutic trials, preferably randomized controlled trials, and multi-center collaborations with larger cohorts of patients will be essential.