Adding etanercept (Enbrel) to methotrexate therapy for early rheumatoid arthritis (RA) resulted in higher rates of both remission and radiographic nonprogression in a recently reported clinical trial.
Half of patients given combined treatment achieved clinical remission within a year compared with 28% given methotrexate alone. In addition, 80% of combination-therapy patients achieved radiographic nonprogression vs. 59% of the monotherapy group (Lancet. 2008;372:375-382).
Subjects were randomly assigned to either oral methotrexate alone, titrated from 7.5 mg/week to a maximum of 20 mg/week after eight weeks, or methotrexate at the same titration plus subcutaneous etanercept 50 mg/week.
“Fifty-nine percent of combination-therapy patients had no swollen joints at week 52, and over half of patients on combination therapy had functional ability comparable to that in the healthy population,” said researchers.