Patients with active rheumatoid arthritis (RA) can continue to safely take courses of anti-B cell drug rituximab even if they did not initially respond to the treatment, new research has indicated.
Researchers from Canada published the results of their study in the journal Arthritis and Rheumatism.
The team's trial involved 1,039 RA patients who received one or more courses of rituximab, which works by knocking out the body's white blood cells called B cells.
Of these people, 570 received two courses, 190 patients needed three and 40 took four courses of rituximab. All these patients had failed to respond to the first course of treatment.
The team found that improvements were seen in the patients who received the additional treatments and that there were no more adverse events in these groups than in people who only took the drug once.
As a result, Dr Edward Keystone and the rest of the team concluded: "These findings indicate that patients treated with repeated courses of rituximab have sustained clinical responses with no new adverse events."
An Arthritis Research Campaign spokeswoman said: "This is encouraging news for RA patients taking rituximab over a longer period, as there is a concern that the drug may lose its effectiveness after repeated infusions, and also lead to an increased risk of infections."
http://www.arc.org.uk/news/article/18446872OK, I'm not having a good day, so I'm not sure I'm interpreting this correctly, but are they saying if Rituxan doesn't work after your first infusion, it might after your second, third or fourth? And since you have to wait about six months in between, are they honestly suggesting patients should keep trying this treatment, with no positive results, for 18 months before they give up on it? I'm having trouble waiting four months before I give up on it!I had absolutely no improvement until the six month mark. I was ready to just give up and then the first week in December, I started feeling great. It was out of the blue for me because I thought the Rituxan had failed. Other people have posted they noticed subtle diffirences, not me.
It was like I woke up one day and I felt really good. It has been over two months now that I've been feeling good. I have reduced the MTX and no longer use prednisone...
LynnLynn
That sounds fab!!!!!
Lynne,