Triple Oral Therapy Versus Antitumor Necrosis Factor Plus Methotrexate (MTX) in Patients with Rheumatoid Arthritis and Inadequate Response to MTX: A Systematic Literature Review
Bibliographic record
Abstract
OBJECTIVE: For patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) who have an inadequate response to methotrexate (MTX), the relative effectiveness of the combination of conventional disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs (DMARD) compared with the combination of tumor necrosis factor (TNF) inhibitors and MTX, as second-line therapy, is uncertain. The aim of this study was to compare the efficacy and tolerance of triple oral DMARD therapy versus anti-TNF agents associated with MTX in patients with RA after MTX failure. METHODS: We performed a systematic search of the literature up to November 2015 in MEDLINE, Embase, the Cochrane library, and abstracts from the American College of Rheumatology (ACR) and the European League Against Rheumatism (EULAR) meetings from 2006 to 2015. Articles were included if they were of randomized controlled trials of patients receiving triple oral combination therapy (TT; MTX + sulfasalazine + hydroxychloroquine) compared with anti-TNF agents plus MTX. Treatment effects were examined by disease activity [Disease Activity Score in 28 joints (DAS28)], ACR and EULAR response criteria, structural damage by the modified total Sharp score, and functional disability by the Health Assessment Questionnaire (HAQ). RESULTS: Our search identified 263 articles; only 5 fulfilled the selection criteria. Analysis of ACR and EULAR response criteria, DAS28, and modified Sharp scores favored anti-TNF agents combined with MTX. Functional disability (HAQ) and rates of adverse events did not differ between treatments. CONCLUSION: In patients with RA in whom MTX has failed, the addition of a TNF antagonist to MTX may be a valid option, with better clinical outcomes and better radiographic results in the presence of poor prognostic factors. In the absence of poor prognostic factors and/or with contraindications to biologic agents, TT retains its place in the therapeutic strategy for RA in a currently restricted economic context.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.005 | 0.015 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.010 | 0.006 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.007 | 0.009 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Open science | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.005 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".