Article
Rituximab in Rheumatoid Arthritis – 4 Years Interim Analysis of the Non-Interventional BRIDGING Study
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Published: | September 12, 2014 |
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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.