Results of a small study at the Imperial College London, UK, indicates that the cancer drug Rituxan (rituximab) may offer the first new treatment for lupus in 50 years. Lupus erythematosus is a systemic autoimmune disease, which causes nephritis in 40% of the lupus patients. For the study, scientists enrolled twenty people with lupus nephritis and found that 60% of the patients showed significant signs of improvement after taking Rituxan. The drug was not effective however in people of African ancestry or in those with very low levels of albumin protein in their blood.