Durability of treatment with methotrexate in Venezuelan patients with rheumatoid arthritis

Abstract

A multicenter, national, retrospective, and cross-sectional study of 219 hospital-based Venezuelan patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) was aimed to evaluate the probability of continuity of treatment with oral methotrexate (MTX). Treatment survival decreased from 92% at 12 months to 42% at 180 months, as assessed by life table analysis and the Kaplan-Meier method. Forty-seven patients stopped treatment and adverse effects (29.7%) and lack of continuous access to medication (19.1%) were the most common causes for withdrawal. MTX survival was decreased in the group with combined MTX plus leflunomide therapy, as shown by the log-rank test. Venezuelan patients with RA have a probability of continuing treatment with oral MTX comparable to non-Hispanic patient populations. However, concomitant use of leflunomide may increase the risk of interruption of MTX treatment in this RA population.

Safety of Nonsteroidal Antiinflammatory Drugs and/or Paracetamol in People Receiving Methotrexate for Inflammatory Arthritis: A Cochrane Systematic Review

“…This process is illustrated in Figure 1. We excluded 142 articles after reviewing the full text (for details see the online Appendix available from www.3epain.com), leaving 16 articles that met the inclusion criteria 19,20,21,22,23,24,25,26,27,28,29,30,31,32,33,34 . Three articles were identified for further review from the hand search of references in articles, but only 1 of these was suitable for inclusion 35 .…”

“…The characteristics of the included studies are summarized in Table 1. Of the 17 studies, 3 were RCT 19,20,21 , 4 CBA 22,23,24,25 , 7 cohort 26,27,28,29,30,31,35 , and 3 case-control studies 32,33,34 , although few of the studies included primary outcomes that addressed the desired outcomes of our review. Additional information regarding the study design of the study by Fathi, et al 19 was obtained from a previous publication 36 .…”

Effect of Low-Dose Prednisone on Leukocyte Counts and Subpopulations in Patients With Rheumatoid Arthritis

“…3 In our center, 85% of patients had a current or past history of treatment with these drugs. 4 In this hospital-based, observational cross-sectional retrospective study, 157 consecutive patients with RA (American College of Rheumatology criteria 5 ) were receiving (n ϭ 91) or not (n ϭ 66) daily doses of oral prednisone. Average prednisone dose was 6.1 Ϯ 2.7 mg. Groups were comparable except for a lower frequency of treatment with methotrexate and chloroquine in the prednisone-untreated group (data not shown) and in younger age in the prednisone-treated group ( Table 1).…”

Tolerance, survival and adherence to treatment with methotrexate in patients with rheumatoid arthritis

“…Se incluyeron 118 pacientes, 101 mujeres (85,6%), con una edad mediana (m) de 56 años (RIC 49-64) al momento de la evaluación y un tiempo m de evolución de 10 años (RIC 6-18) desde el diagnóstico de la AR. ochenta y cinco pacientes (72%) recibieron MTX por vía oral (Vo), y la dosis m del mismo fue de 15 mg/semana (RIC [15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23]75). El tiempo m de seguimiento del tratamiento con MTX fue de 94,5 meses (RIC 44-164).…”

“…En esta cohorte se observó una prevalencia de EA asociados al MTX de un 43,2%. Comparativamente, en dos estudios realizados en Latinoamérica (Colombia y Venezuela) se describen una frecuencia de 44% 17,18 . Sin embargo, en otros estudios la prevalencia fue algo menor.…”