Prediction of rituximab and tocilizumab efficiency in rheumatoid arthritis

Volkova M.V.

Belarusian medical Academy of postgraduate education, Minsk, Belarus

Objective: to study the possibility of prediction the efficiency of treatment with tocilizumab and rituximab in rheumatoid arthritis (RA), taking into account the clinical and immunological characteristics of patients.

Material and methods. The efficacy of treatment with tocilizumab in 53 patients and rituximab in 22 patients with RA within 12 months was analyzed, the prognostic role of the initial values of activity indices, the presence of systemic manifestations, the duration of RA, levels of autoantibodies and acute phase proteins were evaluated.

Results. The high efficacy of treatment with biological drugs in RA was established, the treatment goals reached by 84.91% of patients in the group of tocilizumab and 72.72% in the group of rituximab, but the remaining patients did not reach the treatment goal after 12 months of follow-up.

Conclusions. Reliable predictors of a good response to tocilizumab in RA may be high activity of the joint syndrome, to rituximab – the seropositive variant of RA, as well as the presence of systemic manifestations.