Anti-tumour necrosis factor {alpha} therapy in patients with rheumatoid arthritis results in a significant and long-lasting decrease of concomitant glucocorticoid treatment.

摘要

The introduction of biological therapies in the management of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) drives the need to re-evaluate existing' standard therapy regimens. Although tumour necrosis factor (TNF)alpha inhibitors (TNFi) have been approved to treat RA successfully, little information is available on the potential glucocorticoid (GC)-sparing effect of TNFi. For example, there are no firm data on detailed time courses of the GC dose changes in clinical practice. We therefore performed this study to evaluate the impact of TNFi on GC use in RA.