VIDEO: Glucocorticoid use with Actemra does not affect efficacy, safety

AMSTERDAM — There is no evidence that treatment with glucocorticoid affects clinical efficacy or safety when concomitantly administered with tocilizumab, methotrexate or adalimumab, according to a post-hoc analysis of four randomized, controlled trials presented at the EULAR Annual Congress.

“Approximately 40% of patients are using glucocorticoids in clinical trials but we don’t know the effect of the glucocorticoids are on efficacy and safety,” Mary Safy, PhD, from the department of rheumatology and clinical immunology at the University Medical Center Utrecht in the Netherlands, told Healio Rheumatology.

To determine whether stable glucocorticoid dosing at baseline when used with tocilizumab (Actemra, Genentech), methotrexate or adalimumab (Humira, AbbVie), Safy and colleagues examined data from four randomized controlled double-blind trials — AMBITION,ACT-RAY, ADACTA and FUNCTION — among patients with rheumatoid arthritis who were methotrexate-naïve, intolerant or had an inadequate response to conventional synthetic DMARDs.

“We did not find an effect of glucocorticoids on serious adverse events nor serious infections in the tocilizumab monotherapy arm, but we did find an effect of more serious adverse events and more serious infections in the glucocorticoid arms of the methotrexate and adalimumab groups,” Safy said. “In conclusion, while our findings do not support any effects of glucocorticoid on baseline on efficacy and safety in tocilizumab monotherapy arms, but when using adalimumab or methotrexate, it does have an effect.”