Tocilizumab Improves Patient-Reported Outcomes in Rheumatoid Arthritis

Tocilizumab (TCZ) monotherapy was associated with more clinically meaningful improvements in self-reported outcomes among patients with rheumatoid arthritis compared with methotrexate (MTX) and adalimumab (ADA), according to the findings of a recent study.

In their post hoc analysis, the researchers assessed data from AMBITION and ADACTA, 2 randomized controlled trials that included patients with rheumatoid arthritis who were randomly assigned to receive either TCZ, MTX, or ADA monotherapy. The studies measured patient-reported outcomes using the patient global assessment (PtGA), pain, Health Assessment Questionnaire Disability Index (HAQ-DI), Functional Assessment of Chronic Illness Therapy (FACIT)-Fatigue, and the Short Form-36 (SF-36) physical component summary (PCS) and mental component summary (MCS), as well as 8 SF-36 domain scores.
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Changes from baseline to 24 weeks in patient-reported scores based on the minimum clinically important difference and age-matched and gender-matched normative values were assessed as the primary outcome.

At week 24, patients in AMBITION who received TCZ reported significantly greater mean improvements in HAQ, FACIT-FATIGUE, SF-36 PCS, and 5 SF-36 domains compared with those who received MTX.

Likewise, patients in ADACTA who received TCZ reported significantly greater improvements in PtGA, pain, SF-36 MCS, and 3 SF-36 domains at 24 weeks compared with those who received ADA.

“TCZ monotherapy resulted in more patients reporting clinically meaningful [patient-reported outcomes] improvements and [patient-reported outcome] scores ≥normative values compared with MTX or ADA monotherapy,” the researchers concluded.

—Melissa Weiss

Reference:

Strand V, Michalska M, Birchwood C, et al. Impact of tocilizumab monotherapy on patient-reported outcomes in patients with rheumatoid arthritis from two randomised controlled trials [published online September 14, 2017]. RMD Open. doi:10.1136/rmdopen-2017-000496.