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Intravenous golimumab is effective for the management of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) among patients who switch directly from infliximab treatment, according to results published in Drugs in R&D.
The study included participants with RA who were switching directly from infliximab treatment to intravenous golimumab from 5 US-based rheumatology practices (n=113). The researchers collected data on participant demographics, treatment characteristics, infliximab and intravenous golimumab utilization data, and disease activity measures, including the Clinical Disease Activity Index, Patient Global Assessment, Physician Global Assessment (PhGA), and Routine Assessment of Patient Index Data. The researchers compared disease activity status pre- and post-initiation of intravenous golimumab therapy to assess its efficacy.
Participants showed significant reductions in disease activity following treatment with intravenous golimumab. After golimumab treatment, participants had mean CDAI scores of 8.5±8.1 compared with pretreatment scores of 21.6±12.3. Participants also showed reductions in mean PhGA scores, which dropped from 5.1±2.0 before treatment to 2.0±1.9 after treatment.
Compared with baseline, a significantly higher proportion of participants had low disease activity or remission during the postintravenous golimumab period (P <.05).
All participants who reported adverse events during golimumab treatment (25.75 events per 10,000 patient-months) had previously reported the same events (mouth ulcer and itching) while receiving infliximab treatment.
“[These] results are especially meaningful given this particular sample of patients who developed moderate to severe disease despite receiving treatment with infliximab with dose escalation,” the researchers wrote.
Janssen Medical Affairs, LLC funded this study. The study sponsors contributed to the study design, interpretation of results, and manuscript development.
Reference
Bray VJ, Broadwell A, Baraf HSB, et al. The effectiveness of intravenous golimumab administered directly after infliximab in rheumatoid arthritis patients [published online July 28, 2018]. Drugs R D. doi:10.1007/s40268-018-0240-1
