A 37-year-old man was admitted to hospital for several months of headache, hoarseness and dysphagia; a month of right-sided deafness and nasal bleeding; and a week of dysarthria. He had experienced sinusitis for 1 year before admission and had been treated with antibiotics. He was successfully treated with glucocorticoids (GC) for sudden right-sided hearing loss 9 months before admission. His body weight had decreased by 10 kg over the previous month. A week before admission, he developed a right steppage gait and numbness in the right L5 distribution.
On admission, body temperature was 37.7  C and the rest of his vital signs were normal. Neurological examination showed a bilateral mixed hearing loss, a right curtain sign, weakness of the right trapezius, rightward tongue deviation, and paralysis of the right peroneal nerve. Initial blood tests showed a slightly elevated erythrocyte sedimentation rate (29 mm/h) and C-reactive protein (CRP) levels (1.06 mg/dL), and white blood cell count was slightly increased (8.9 x 109/L). His renal and liver function was normal (eGFR 118 ml/minute/1.73 m2) and the urine test was also normal (proteinuria, hematuria, urinary cast were negative). Anti-nuclear antibody, rheumatoid factor, angiotensin converting enzyme, myeloperoxidase-anti-neutrophil cytoplasmic antibody and soluble interleukin-2 receptor were normal, but proteinase 3-anti-neutrophil cytoplasmic antibody was increased (16.9 IU/mL). Cerebrospinal fluid was normal. A gadolinium-enhanced MRI scan of the head showed an enhancing infiltrative lesion in the right retropharynx encasing the carotid sheath (Fig. 1a), which seemed to cause the paralysis of IX, X, XI and XII nerves. Lumber spine MRI showed no evidence of lumbar disk herniation and nerve conduction study showed the paralysis of the right peroneal nerve. Chest computed tomography showed a 23 mm nodule in the left upper lobe. A CT-guided needle biopsy of the lung lesion and biopsy of the nasal mucosa were performed but showed only infiltration of inflammatory cells and no evidence of malignancy, vasculitis or granuloma. Culture of the lung specimen showed no evidence of infection and the interferon-gamma release assay for Mycobacterium tuberculosis was negative. We diagnosed GPA based on the American College of Rheumatology classification criteria for Wegener's granulomatosis (WG) and classification of WG by the Watts algorism.
The patient was treated with prednisone (PSL) 1 mg/kg daily and IVCY 1000 mg every 3 weeks (Fig. 2). His fever, headache, and swallowing function improved rapidly, and peripheral neuropathy also improved, but hoarseness persisted. His Birmingham Vasculitis Activity Score 2008 version 3 score improved from 14 to 4, and he was discharged on IVCY and a tapering dose of PSL 45 mg/day.
Three months later, while receiving oral GC and IVCY, he was readmitted for recurrence of headache and right-sided hearing loss. On MRI, the lesion encasing the right carotid sheath has not reduced (Fig. 1b). CRP levels remained slightly increased (1.04 mg/dL). He was treated with RTX 600 mg/week for 4 weeks and GC for re-induction therapy. His headache improved rapidly and hearing ability improved slowly. He was still on GC 1 year after RTX administration, with persistent hoarseness as his only symptom.
To investigate immune status, we tracked peripheral T and B cell counts after RTX administration (Fig. 3). According to the peripheral T and B cell counts, whereas CY treatment with GC reduced the number of peripheral CD4+ and CD8+ T cells and B cells, RTX selectively reduced the number of peripheral B cells slowly over time. B cells tended to decrease 2 weeks after RTX treatment, with the reduction lasting 8 months.