LONDON – Rheumatoid arthritis patients initially treated with tumor necrosis factor (TNF) inhibitor adalimumab (Humira), plus disease-modifying methotrexate, maintained improved disease control over eight years compared with patients who began monotherapy, researchers said here.
In the long-term follow-up of the PREMIER trial, Arthur Kavanaugh, MD, professor of medicine at the University of California San Diego, told MedPage Today that 65.3% of patients initially treated with the combination of adalimumab and methotrexate maintained more than a 0.5-point reduction in their scores on the Health Assessment Questionnaire, compared with 55.8% and 60.2% of patients, respectively, who initially were treated with adalimumab or methotrexate alone.
At his poster presentation at the European League Against Rheumatism annual meeting here, Kavanaugh noted that "patients who were started on the combination therapy during the two-year blinded part of the trial maintained the advantage of early treatment over the six-year extension of the trial." The ongoing evaluation will continue for another two years.