Immunoadsorption in patients with haemolytic uraemic syndrome - Authors' reply

摘要

German physicians who treated patients similar to those described by Andreas Greinacher and colleagues (Sept 24, p 1166)1—ie, with neurological symptoms after haemolytic uraemic syndrome caused by Escherichia coli O104:H4—should collaborate to provide international readers of The Lancet with a control group. It remains difficult for outsiders to see by what combination of arguments a clinical reader should decide definitively that a future patient with the same syndrome should be treated by immunoadsorption. The patient data are not definitive: all patients (except 11 and 12) in Greinacher and colleagues' figure 1 were in hospital when the innovative idea for treatment was developed.