From Reuters Health Information
Tocilizumab Better Than Methotrexate for Rheumatoid Arthritis
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) Dec 18 - Tocilizumab is more effective than methotrexate for patients with moderate-to-severe rheumatoid arthritis, producing “rapid improvement” in signs and symptoms of the disease, new findings show.

Tocilizumab is an antibody to the anti-interleukin (IL) 6 receptor. It inhibits signaling of IL-6, which plays a major role in rheumatoid arthritis pathogenesis, Dr. G. Jones of the University of Tasmania in Hobart and colleagues explain in the Annals of Rheumatic Diseases.

The drug has shown promise in patients with moderate to severe disease who have not responded adequately to disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs (DMARDs) or tumor necrosis factor inhibitors, the authors said, but has not been tested in patients who’ve not failed treatment with DMARDs.
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Comments : Even our experience with Actemra was fascinating. Our patient on Actemra is doing extremely well. Symptomatically she has no more pain. She is now afebrile and all her inflammatory markers, ESR and CRP has completely normalised. Her previous attempts with anti TNF alpha failed to achieve these results. The prospect of being able to give these agents as monotherapy is also enticing.

Our first experience with Tocilizumab