Comparative effectiveness of treatment with the first TNF antagonist in monotherapy, the first TNF antagonist plus one conventional synthetic disease-modifying antirheumatic drug, and the first TNF antagonist plus two or more conventional synthetic disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs in patients with rheumatoid arthritis

Table 2 Prescription patterns of csDMARDs (MTX, LFN y SSZ) and GCs before the firs TNF antagonist

Treatment	First TNF antagonist monotherapy		First TNF antagonist plus one csDMARD		First TNF antagonist plus two or more csDMARDs		Total		P*
	n	%	n	%	n	%	n	%
	234	21	766	67	136	12	1.136	100
Previous use of DMARDs (MTX, LFN, SSZ) and/or PDN) (n , %)	229	98	712	93	130	96	1,071	94
None (n, %)	5	2	54	7	6	4	65	6	0.0001
One (n, %)									< 0.001
PDN	8	3	139	18	76	56	223	20
MTX + PDN	47	20	122	16	9	7	178	16
LFN + PDN	17	7	106	14	8	6	131	11
LFN	1	0.4	41	5	2	1	44	4
SSZ + PDN	3	1	29	4	12	9	44	4
MTX	5	2	33	4	1	0.7	39	3
SSZ	4	2	11	1	1	0.7	16	1
Total (MTX, LFN, SSZ)	77	33	342	45	33	24	452	40
Total PDN	75	32	396	52	105	77	576	51
Two (n, %)									< 0.001
LFN + MTX + PDN	67	29	89	12	12	9	168	15
LFN + MTX	16	7	26	3	2	1	44	4
SSZ + MTX + PDN	15	6	31	4	3	2	49	4
SSZ + LFN + PDN	4	2	38	5	2	1	44	4
SSZ + MTX	8	3	14	2	1	0.7	23	2
SSZ + LFN	1	0.4	6	0.7	0	0	7	0.6
Total (MTX, LFN, SSZ)	111	48	204	27	20	15	335	30
Total PDN	86	37	158	21	17	12	218	20
Three (n, %)									< 0.001
MTX + SSZ + LFN	6	2	6	0.7	1	0.7	13	1
MTX + SSZ + LFN + PDN	27	12	21	3	0	0	48	4
Total (MTX, LFN, SSZ)	33	14	27	3	1	0.7	61	5
Total PDN	27	12	21	3	0	3	48	4
Previous exposure to MTX (n, %)	191	83	343	45	29	21	563	50	0.03
Reason for discontinuation
Inefficacy	92	48	212	62	16	55	320	57
Non-serious adverse event	91	48	121	35	13	45	225	40
Serious adverse event	8	4	10	3	0	0	18	3
Previous exposure to LFN (n, %)	139	60	338	44	27	20	505	44	< 0.0001
Reason for discontinuation
Inefficacy	64	46	229	68	16	59	309	62
Non-serious adverse event	69	50	104	31	11	41	184	36
Serious adverse event	6	4	5	1	0	0	11	2
Previous exposure to SSZ (n, %)	68	29	157	20	20	15	245	21	0.0001
Reason for discontinuation (n, %)
Inefficacy	17	50	46	63	1	33	64	26
Non-serious adverse event	18	47	26	36	2	66	46	19
Serious adverse event	0	0	1	1	0	0	2	0.8
Previous exposure to PDN ( n,%)	188	80	575	75	122	90	885	78	< 0.0001

csDMARD conventional synthetic disease-modifying antirheumatic drug, DMARD disease-modifying antirheumatic drug, MTX methotrexate, LFN leflunomide, SSZ sulfasalazine, PDN prednisone

ISSN: 1478-6362