Advanced therapy not enough for nearly 75% of Canadian patients with psoriatic arthritis
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts
Key takeaways:
- Nearly three-quarters of Canadians with PsA failed to achieve minimal disease activity within 6 months of initiating advanced therapy.
- Earlier diagnosis, imaging and improved therapies are needed.
Patients with psoriatic arthritis in Canada face “substantial burden and unmet need” for improved treatments, as nearly 75% fail to achieve minimal disease activity within 6 months of starting advanced therapy, according to data.
“Although there has been great progress in the management of patients with psoriatic arthritis, there is a larger proportion of patients who either do not respond to the advanced therapy or have adverse events,” Dafna D. Gladman, MD, FRCPC, a professor of medicine at the University of Toronto and the study’s lead author, told Healio. “That means that we need additional new therapies to accomplish the desired outcome.”
To quantify Canadians’ residual PsA activity and remaining disease burden following the advent of TNF inhibitors and Janus kinase inhibitors, Gladman and colleagues conducted an observational, retrospective analysis of data from two registries — Rhumadata and the International Psoriasis and Arthritis Research Team. Their study included 1,596 patients who initiated advanced PsA therapies and tracked how many achieved minimal disease activity within 6 months.
Patients were divided by region, with 165 in the Atlantic group, 687 in Quebec, 629 in Ontario, and 115 in the western Canada group. Mean age ranged from 47.6 years in western Canada to 51.1 years in the Atlantic region.
According to the researchers, the region with the greatest share of patients achieving MDA within 6 months of treatment was the Atlantic, at 75%, while the lowest was Ontario, at 64.8%. Compared with patients receiving a TNF inhibitor, more patients using an interleukin-17 inhibitor failed to achieve MDA in every region, except the Atlantic. After 6 months of therapy, between 73.2% and 78.6% of all included patients still reported pain.
“Nearly three-quarters of Canadians with PsA failed to achieve MDA within 6 months of initiating an advanced therapy,” Gladman and colleagues wrote. “These results highlight the need for earlier diagnosis, earlier access to advanced therapies, better access to imaging across the country, as well as improved therapeutic approaches to enhance outcomes for Canadians with PsA.”
Meanwhile, Gladman told Healio these results were “not surprising” but “important to document.”
“Moreover, this study provides information from across Canada which has not been available before,” Gladman said. “That means that we need additional new therapies to accomplish the desired outcome.
“What is needed are biomarkers for response and toxicity to the medications we use,” she added. “These studies are currently ongoing in several countries. Further studies are needed with new medications with different mechanisms of action, which may be relevant in those patients who do not adequately respond to the current medications.”
Collapse
Read more about
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts