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42. Kongress der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Rheumatologie, 28. Jahrestagung der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Orthopädische Rheumatologie, 24. Wissenschaftliche Jahrestagung der Gesellschaft für Kinder- und Jugendrheumatologie

17.-20. September 2014, Düsseldorf

Rituximab in Rheumatoid Arthritis – 4 Years Interim Analysis of the Non-Interventional BRIDGING Study

Meeting Abstract

  • Andreas Krause - Immanuel Krankenhaus Berlin, Klinik für Innere Medizin, Abteilung Rheumatologie und Klinische Immunologie, Berlin
  • Peer Aries - Rheumatologie im Struensee-Haus, Hamburg
  • Hanns-Martin Lorenz - Universitätsklinikum Heidelberg, Medizinische Klinik V, Sektion Rheumatologie, Heidelberg
  • Ulf Müller-Ladner - Justus-Liebig Universität Gießen, Kerckhoff-Klinik GmbH, Rheumatologie u. klinische Immunologie, Osteologie, Physikalische Therapie, Bad Nauheim
  • Gunther Neeck - Rheumazentrum Prof. Dr. Gunther Neeck, Bad Doberan
  • Henning Rusch - Roche Pharma AG, Medical Management Rheumatologie, Grenzach-Wyhlen
  • Jörg Wendler - Praxisgemeinschaft Rheumatologie Nephrologie Erlangen, Dres. Kleinert, Rapp, Schuch u. Wendler, Erlangen

Deutsche Gesellschaft für Rheumatologie. Deutsche Gesellschaft für Orthopädische Rheumatologie. Gesellschaft für Kinder- und Jugendrheumatologie. 42. Kongress der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Rheumatologie (DGRh); 28. Jahrestagung der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Orthopädische Rheumatologie (DGORh); 24. wissenschaftliche Jahrestagung der Gesellschaft für Kinder- und Jugendrheumatologie (GKJR). Düsseldorf, 17.-20.09.2014. Düsseldorf: German Medical Science GMS Publishing House; 2014. DocRA.19

doi: 10.3205/14dgrh144, urn:nbn:de:0183-14dgrh1449

Published: September 12, 2014

© 2014 Krause et al.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/deed.en). You are free: to Share – to copy, distribute and transmit the work, provided the original author and source are credited.


Outline

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Background: Clinical routine data on the efficacy and safety of rituximab (RTX) in patients suffering from severe active rheumatoid arthritis (RA) are assessed in the German BRIDGING study.

Methods: This is an ongoing prospective, non-interventional study observing RTX treatment for 6 to 12 months. The study collects activity scores, pain intensity scores, and adverse events.

Results: At the cut-off date (December 2013) baseline data of 1622 patients were available. Of these patients, 996 had active RA (DAS28>3.2 at baseline) and a documented duration of observation of ≥ 24 weeks. Most patients were seropositive. Scores for pain intensity, HAQ, and DAS28 at week 24 are shown in Table 1 [Tab. 1]. Mean DAS28 improvement was 1.6 which was independent of pre-treatment, overweight and smoking nor affected by tuberculosis, solid tumors or lymphoma. The number of serious infectious adverse drug reactions amounted to a rate of 4.0 per 100 patient years.

Conclusion: Showing improvements of all RA activity parameters in extensively pre-treated patients, the daily clinical practice data of the BRIDGING study confirm the benefit of RTX treatment in patients with severe RA. Our safety results confirm the known safety profile.