TY - JOUR
T1 - Switching TNF-alpha antagonists in rheumatoid arthritis
T2 - The experience of the LORHEN registry
AU - Caporali, Roberto
AU - Sarzi-Puttini, Piercarlo
AU - Atzeni, Fabiola
AU - Gorla, Roberto
AU - Filippini, Matteo
AU - Marchesoni, Antonio
AU - Favalli, Ennio Giulio
AU - Bobbio-Pallavicini, Francesca
AU - Montecucco, Carlomaurizio
PY - 2010/4
Y1 - 2010/4
N2 - New biologic agents have changed the paradigm of rheumatoid arthritis treatment, leading to improvement in managing patients' refractory to classical DMARDs. Anti-TNF-alpha is used as first-line treatment in patients failing to respond to classical DMARDs. However, up to 50% of patients fail to respond to these drugs or develop adverse events leading to treatment discontinuation: in these cases the optimal treatment strategy is still a matter of debate even if trying with a second anti-TNF-alpha is considered a good option. We report data of patients switching from a first to a second anti-TNF-alpha from an Italian registry of patients with rheumatoid arthritis, showing that switching is valuable in patients stopping a first anti-TNFα drug. The patients with higher disease activity levels and those stopping the first anti-TNFα treatment because of a lack of efficacy are very likely to respond to the second treatment.
AB - New biologic agents have changed the paradigm of rheumatoid arthritis treatment, leading to improvement in managing patients' refractory to classical DMARDs. Anti-TNF-alpha is used as first-line treatment in patients failing to respond to classical DMARDs. However, up to 50% of patients fail to respond to these drugs or develop adverse events leading to treatment discontinuation: in these cases the optimal treatment strategy is still a matter of debate even if trying with a second anti-TNF-alpha is considered a good option. We report data of patients switching from a first to a second anti-TNF-alpha from an Italian registry of patients with rheumatoid arthritis, showing that switching is valuable in patients stopping a first anti-TNFα drug. The patients with higher disease activity levels and those stopping the first anti-TNFα treatment because of a lack of efficacy are very likely to respond to the second treatment.
KW - Anti-TNF-alpha
KW - DMARDs
KW - Methotrexate
KW - Rheumatoid arthritis
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U2 - 10.1016/j.autrev.2009.12.010
DO - 10.1016/j.autrev.2009.12.010
M3 - Article
C2 - 20044040
AN - SCOPUS:77950300568
VL - 9
SP - 465
EP - 469
JO - Autoimmunity Reviews
JF - Autoimmunity Reviews
SN - 1568-9972
IS - 6
ER -