Baricitinib (BARI) 2 or 4 mg had a beneficial treatment effect on patients with moderate to severe RA compared with placebo (PBO), irrespective of the number or nature of prior patient bDMARD use. The current therapeutic target for patients with established RA is low disease activity, but many patients fail to achieve this due to inadequate responses to DMARD therapies. With this patient population growing, therapies for these patients are considered one of the greatest unmet needs in RA. This s...

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February 2018

Methotrexate (MTX) tapering in patients with active, severe RA receiving intravenous tocilizumab (TCZ) was non-inferior to continuing stable MTX doses in maintaining a good/moderate EULAR response. Although MTX and bDMARD combination therapy may produce better response rates than bDMARD monotherapy, one third of patients discontinue or are non-compliant with MTX due to preference or toxicity. This randomised, non-inferiority study investigated the efficacy and tolerability of MTX tapering and ma...

Professor Iain McInnes Reviews the Most Important Papers from 2017

Please click the links below to go to the CSF review of each paper.

2017 was a successful year for rheumatoid arthritis research, with some key advances in JAK inhibitors and IL-6 inhibitors, as outlined below. - Tofacitinib was suggested as a potential treatment for psoriatic arthritis, and NICE recommended tofacitinib as a treatment for moderate to severe rheumatoid arthritis - Baricitinib studies supported the potential use of baricitinib as a treatment for rheumatoid arthritis - Filgotinib Phase 2 studies suggested that filgotinib could be effective a...

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January 2018

This multi-national TOZURA study programme confirmed the efficacy and safety profile of subcutaneous tocilizumab (TC-SC) when administered as either monotherapy or in combination with csDMARDs. TOZURA was a Phase 4 study programme that evaluated open-label, TCZ-SC in patients with moderate-to-severe RA. A total of 1804 patients with active RA were enrolled in the study programme. Patients had inadequate responses to csDMARDs, anti-TNF therapies, or they were MTX-naïve. TCZ-SC was administered we...
This 2-year Phase 3 study, proved that subcutaneous tocilizumab (TC-SC) has long-term efficacy and an acceptable safety profile. Patients enrolled had been previously diagnosed with RA with an inadequate response to DMARDs. Patients were randomised 2:1 to receive doses of TCZ-SC (n=437) or PBO (n=219) every other week for 6 months. After this time, all patients received TCZ-SC. Escape therapy, defined as weekly TCZ-SC, was available to patients from Month 3. Efficacy was analysed using ACR respo...
Patient-reported outcomes (PROs) vastly improved in the first 24 weeks post-initiation of tocilizumab (TCZ) therapies compared to methotrexate (MTX) monotherapy in the U-Act-Early trial.U-Act-Early was a two-year, treat-to-target study that compared the safety and efficacy of TCZ and MTX treatment strategies in DMARD-naïve patients with early RA. Sustained remission was classed as more effective in patients given TCZ monotherapy or combination therapy with MTX compared to MTX alone. TCZ therapie...

December 2017

In this post hoc analysis, six Phase 3 studies were used to analyse the effect of glucocorticoids (GC) on the efficacy of tofacitinib (TOF) in patients with RA. Concomitant use of GC did not affect the clinical or radiographic outcomes of patients treated with TOF. Data from all six clinical trials were evaluated, with four studies (ORAL Scan, ORAL Standard, ORAL Sync and ORAL Step) being pooled for analysis. In these studies, MTX was used as a comparison and patients were required to maintain a...

İmmün ve İnflamatuar Hastalıklarda Terapötik Strateji Olarak JAK İnhibisyonu

Nat Rev Drug Discov 2017;16:843–62 DOI: 10.1038/nrd.2017.201

Janus kinases (JAKs) are essential mediators of downstream signaling pathways in many inflammatory and autoimmune diseases. This review summarizes current clinical data on first- and second-generation JAK inhibitors (jakinibs) and discusses their use for the treatment of immune and inflammatory conditions.First generation jakinibs such as tofacitinib, baricitinib, and ruxolitinib, non-selectively inhibit JAK-dependent pro-inflammatory cytokines, which are major contributors to immunopathology. T...

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This case series evaluated the use of tocilizumab (TCZ) as an effective treatment for patients who develop arthritis as an adverse event (AE) of immune checkpoint inhibitor (ICI) cancer treatment. Results suggested that TCZ was an effective treatment, as it reduced the arthritis disease progression.ICIs have been defined as a revolutionary treatment for metastatic melanomas; however, a common AE is the development of polyarthritis. Current arthritis treatments reduce the efficiency of ICI therap...

November 2017

The results of this analysis of patients with herpes zoster (HZ) within the global tofacitinib (TOF) RA programme suggest that there is likely to be a greater HZ risk in patients receiving TOF and glucocorticoids compared with patients receiving TOF monotherapy.The global TOF RA development programme comprised 2 Phase 1, 9 Phase 2, 6 Phase 3 and 2 long-term extension studies. These studies included 6192 patients; data were reviewed to identify cases of HZ. Crude incidence rates of number of pati...