High rate of renal relapse in 71 patients with Wegener's granulomatosis under maintenance of remission with low-dose methotrexate.

Objective: To examine the long-term efficacy of low-dose intravenous methotrexate (MTX) with and without concomitant glucocorticoids (GC) for remission maintenance in patients with generalized Wegener's granulomatosis (WG) in an open-label, prospective, standardized trial.

Methods: After induction of remission by cyclophosphamide and GC, 71 patients (41 males, 30 female) with initially generalized WG received low-dose methotrexate at 0.3 mg/kg body weight once weekly.