A variety of measures indicate that patients with long-standing severe rheumatoid arthritis (RA) who are receiving chronic treatment with adalimumab(Humira) have reduced fatigue and enhanced quality of life, according to German and US researchers.
In the December issue of the Journal of Rheumatology, Dr. Thomas Mittendorf of the University of Hannover and colleagues note that clinical trials have indicated that the agent is safe and effective. In this study, the researchers sought primarily to investigate the impact on quality of life.
The team followed 505 RA patients taking part in an open-label extension after a number of adalimumab studies.
Clinical and health-related quality-of-life assessments (HRQOL), fatigue assessment and other measures were updated every 8 weeks over the 3-year study period.
Following the start of adalimumab therapy, the researchers saw a rapid and significant improvement in fatigue and health-related scoring. "This effect was maintained over the study period for a mean of 1.6 years in all applied measures," Dr. Mittendorf and colleagues report.
In addition, the team notes that HRQOL data from all the instruments used in the study correlated significantly with each other.
J Rheumatol 2007;34:2343-2350.
For the newbies!I can attest to this. Since restarting Humira after a 4 month break I'm starting to come out of the flare and hope to be status quo in another month. Lindy
I hope you are status quo really soon, LinB.
I wish Humira would have worked for me...