RESEARCH - Enbrel maintains the clinical benefit achieved by Remicade in patients with RA who discontinue Remicade

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Ann Rheum Dis. 2006 Jul 12; [Epub ahead of print]

Etanercept maintains the clinical benefit achieved by infliximab in patients

with rheumatoid arthritis who discontinued infliximab due to side effects.

Iannone F, Trotta F, Montecucco C, Giacomelli R, Galeazzi M, Matucci-Cerinic

M, Ferri C, Cutolo M, Bambara LM, Triolo G, Ferraccioli G, Valentini G,

Lapadula G.

DIMIMP, Rheumatology Unit, University of Bari, Italy.

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the efficacy of switching to etanercept therapy in

patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) who already responded to infliximab,

but presented side effects. METHODS: Charts of 553 patients with RA were

retrospectively reviewed in order to select patients who responded to the

therapy with infliximab and switched to etanercept because of occurrence of

adverse effects. Clinical data were gathered during 24 weeks of etanercept

therapy and for the same period of infliximab treatment before the latter

was stopped. DAS-44, ESR 1st hour, VAS pain, HAQ, C-reactive protein (CRP)

were assessed every 8 weeks. RESULTS: Thirty-seven patients were analysed.

Adverse events to infliximab were mostly infusion reactions. No

statistically significant difference between infliximab, before withdrawal,

and etanercept, after 24 weeks, was detected in terms of DAS44 (2.7 and 1.9,

respectively), HAQ (0.75 and 0.75, respectively), ESR (21 and 14,

respectively), and CRP (0.5 and 0.3, respectively). VAS pain significantly

decreased after switching to etanercept therapy (40 and 24, respectively,

p<0.05).

CONCLUSIONS: Our study shows that etanercept maintains the clinical benefit

achieved by infliximab, and suggests that a second TNF-alpha inhibitor can

be the favorable therapy for RA when a first TNF-alpha blocker has been

withdrawn because of adverse events.

PMID: 16837489

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve & db=PubMed & list_uids=1\

6837489

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