A small percentage of the world’s population has lupus. Lupus is an autoimmune connective tissue disease. The cause of lupus is still unknown. However, environmental triggers like too much stress, genetics and drugs are been listed as the cause of Lupus. The gene that causes lupus is not yet determined but it tends to run in families. If a drug caused lupus, the signs and symptoms of lupus usually disappear within days after taking the drug. More women are affected with lupus than men. Lupus affects more people who are not of European descent. Victims are between the ages of 15-50 years old.

The effect of lupus in your body is that your body cells and tissues are damaged and inflamed. It attacks the heart, skin, lungs, the nervous system, blood and kidney. It is a serious disease and unpredictable disease. Some people who have lupus may think that they have a rash. They have a butterfly-like rash on their faces over the bridge of the nose to their cheeks. Patients suffer muscle and joint pains. Many patients who have lupus die due to complications.

There is no known cure for lupus but there is hope for these patients. Rituxan, a drug for cancer may treat patients who are suffering from Lupus. A study was conducted in Imperial College London by U.K. researchers. That study had 20 subjects who had lupus nephritis. This is an inflammation of the kidney because of lupus. When these patients were subjected to Rituxan, around 60% of these patients showed improvement in their conditions.

It was noted that there were some people who did not positively respond to the drugs or this drug does not have any effect on them. People having African ancestry and people having low levels of albumin in their blood were not able to experience the benefits of Rituxan. Rituxan works by targeting hyperactive B cells. These B cells aggravate the kidney inflammation.

Scientists hope to repeat the success of this study with a wider scope of subjects. The results of the study show hope for people who are suffering from lupus. Take note that the study only focused on lupus nephritis. It did not study the other complications of lupus and the effect of Rituxan to those complications. Having more test subjects will help draw out more conclusions and theories which could lead to a possible breakthrough in steroids curing lupus.