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Table 4 Drug exposure and rituximab discontinuation reasons

From: Rheumatoid arthritis patients initiating rituximab with low number of previous bDMARDs failures may effectively reduce rituximab dose and experience fewer serious adverse events than patients on full dose: a 5-year cohort study

 

All patients (n = 361)

Standard dose (n = 280)

Low dose (n = 81)

p value

Total follow-up time (months), median (min, max, IQR)

19 (1, 177; 46)

14.5 (1, 127; 27)

56 (1, 177; 59)

 < 0.0001

Total cumulative RTX exposure (g), median (min, max, IQR)

38 (2, 254; 72)

28 (2, 254; 52)

90 (2, 246; 78)

 < 0.0001

Disease flares

22 (6.3%)

16 (5.9%)

6 (7.5%)

0.599

Reasons for RTX discontinuation

Failuresa

105 (59.3%)

94 (63.6%)

11 (37.9%)

 < 0.0001

Adverse events as stop reasonb (all)

34 (19.2%)

25 (16.9%)

9 (31.0%)

0.131

  Infections

18 (10.2%)

14 (9.5%)

4 (13.8%)

0.711

  Other adverse events

16 (9.0%)

11 (7.4%)

5 (17.2%)

0.183

Other reasonsc

38 (21.5%)

29 (19.5%)

9 (31.1%)

0.002

  1. aIncludes primary and secondary failures
  2. bIncludes all adverse events which led to rituximab discontinuation
  3. cIncludes financial, practical, patient decision, pregnancy, frailty, remission