According to a study of Asian and Latin American patients pooled from the APPEAL (n = 300) and Latin RA (n = 423) studies with an inadequate response to methotrexate monotherapy, patients treated with a combination of etanercept and methotrexate (n = 478) have superior clinical responses at 16 weeks to those treated with a combination of methotrexate and conventional DMARDs (hydrochloroquine [n = 81], leflunomide [n = 69] or sulphasalazine [n = 95]). Superior responses included clinical disease activity index-defined remission (18% vs 7%, P <0.001), low disease activity defined by 28-joint disease activity score with erythrocyte sedimentation rate (39% vs 18%, P <0.001), and a health assessment questionnaire score ≤0.5 (48% vs 34%, P <0.001).
References
Fleischmann, R. et al. Short-term efficacy of etanercept plus methotrexate vs combinations of disease-modifying anti-rheumatic drugs with methotrexate in established rheumatoid arthritis. Rheumatology (Oxford) 10.1093/rheumatology/keu235
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Etanercept or DMARDs for RA combination therapy?. Nat Rev Rheumatol 10, 444 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrrheum.2014.102
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nrrheum.2014.102
