Intravenous Immunoglobulin Therapy Administered Early after Narcolepsy Type 1 Onset in Three Patients Evaluated by Clinical and Polysomnographic Follow-Up

Narcolepsy type 1 is a rare disabling sleep disorder mainly characterized by excessive daytime sleepiness and cataplexy, an emotion-triggered sudden loss of muscle tone. Patients have a selective degeneration of hypocretin-producing neurons in the dorsolateral posterior hypothalamus with growing evidence supporting the hypothesis of an autoimmune mechanism. Few case studies that reported intravenous immunoglobulin therapy (IVIg) suggest the efficacy of IVIg when administered early after disease onset, but the results are controversial. In these retrospective case observations, IVIg cycles were initiated within one to four months after cataplexy onset in a twenty-seven-year-old man, a ten-year-old girl, and a seven-year-old boy, all three with early onset typical narcolepsy type 1. Efficacy of treatment (three IVIg cycles of 1 g/kg administered at four-week intervals) was evaluated based on clinical, polysomnographic, and multiple sleep latency test (mean latency and SOREM) follow-up. Two patients reported decreased cataplexy frequency and ameliorated daytime sleepiness, but no significant amelioration of polysomnographic parameters was observed. Given the possibility of spontaneous improvement of cataplexy frequency with self-behavioral adjustments, these observations would need to be confirmed by larger controlled studies. Based on the present study and current literature, proof of concept is still missing thus prohibiting the consideration of IVIg as an efficient treatment option.