Clinical and functional effectiveness of anti-TNF therapy in patients with rheumatoid arthritis

Objective

To evaluate the clinical and functional activity of patients with rheumatoid arthritis at one and two years after starting anti-TNF therapy.

Patients and methods

This is a retrospective study of 50 RA patients, who started ANTI-TNF theraphy between June 2006 and july 2009. The main variables in the study were: DAS28, HAQ and pain VAS. We analyzed evolution after 1 year and 2 years from the beginning of the treatment. The comparison with the basal state was made with Student’s t test. The statistical study was analyzed by the SPSS 18,0.

Results

The study includes 50 patients, 66% female, with RF in 76% and erosions in 64%, treated with etanercept (28), adalimumab (13) and infliximab (9). Most of them (70%) had recieved at least 2 FAMES before biological. In the below table we compare changes in clinical parameters for different biologics after one and two years.

Table 1

Conclusions

All anti-TNF significantly improve disease activity, functional status and pain VAS after the first year. This improvement continues but not significantly increases the second year.

Etanercept is the only drug with a significant reduction for HAQ, DAS28 and pain VAS.