This is good news!LONDON -- Patients with early, active rheumatoid arthritis who achieve
low-disease activity after treatment with adalimumab (Humira) plus methotrexate
were able to stop taking the biologic and maintain disease control on
methotrexate alone, researchers reported here.
In a multicenter,
randomized trial, among the patients classified as responders to the combination
therapy after 26 weeks of treatment, 94% of those on monotherapy continued to
have an ACR20 response for an additional year, according to Paul Emery, MD, from
the University of Leeds, in Leeds, England, and colleagues. The ACR response is
the American College of Rheumatology criteria for clinical improvement of
symptoms.
Similarly, 95% of those who continued with both methotrexate
and the tumor necrosis factor (TNF) inhibitor maintained an ACR20 response at
week 72 (P=0.72), the investigators reported here at the annual meeting
of the European League Against Rheumatism (EULAR).
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