Rheumatologists at a crossroads: blocking tumour necrosis factor or interleukin 6 in disease-modifying anti-rheumatic drug inadequate responder patients with rheumatoid arthritis

In this issue ofRheumatology, Fleischmannet al. [1] published the 5  year follow-up results of the EXTEND trial (NCT01146652), in which long-standing RA patients with an inadequate response or intolerance (IR) to TNF inhibitors (TNFis) received sarilumab 200 mg every 2 weeks plus conventional synthetic DMARDs (csDMARDs). This is the open-label extension (OLE) of the TARGET trial (NCT01709578) in which sarilumab 150 or 200 mg every 2 weeks plus csDMARDs was compared with placebo plus csDMARDs in the same population. Most patients discontinued prior anti-TNF therapy because of an inadequate response (92.3%), thus TARGET was primarily composed of a popu lation of TNFi inadequate responders [2]. Importantly, the OLE focussed on safety through descriptive statistics.
Source: Rheumatology - Category: Rheumatology Source Type: research