Etanercept for patients with RA: more is not always better

Abstract

Weinblatt and colleagues have studied the efficacy and safety of etanercept 50 mg twice weekly in comparison with etanercept 50 mg once weekly in patients with longstanding rheumatoid arthritis. The study failed to demonstrate any clinically meaningful or statistically significant benefit of the use of the twice weekly dosage. There was also a suggestion that the incidence of certain toxic effects, including sepsis, could be greater in patients receiving the twice weekly dosage, although the numbers of adverse events reported were too small to reach firm conclusions regarding additional toxicity of this higher dose. In the absence of a larger and longer-term investigation, the results of this investigation indicate that increasing the dose of etanercept beyond 50 mg weekly is not advantageous and suggest that an increased dose could be more dangerous for patients with rheumatoid arthritis.