A limited number of clinical studies have been performed to study the efficacy of MMF in the treatment of SLE. Most of these studies involved the treatment of nephritis. Chan, et al (2000) showed that the combination of MMF and prednisolone is as effective as a regimen of cyclophosphamide and prednisolone followed by azathioprine and prednisolone. Azathioprine and MMF as maintenance therapy were compared to cyclophosphamide therapy (Contreras, et al 2004) and appeared to be more efficacious and safer than long-term therapy with i.v. cyclophosphamide. In this study, it was also noted that patients treated with MMF had received lower doses of corticosteroids during maintenance therapy as compared to patients treated with azathioprine.