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New therapy found to provide relief from painful symptoms of debilitating joint disease.
Posted On: November 13, 2017
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Tofacitinib is a tablet that can be taken orally unlike many of the drugs prescribed for psoriatic arthritis, which are given by injection and thus likely to cause more joint pain.
Imagine being plagued by constant but unpredictable pain in your joints. You feel fine some days but experience excruciating pain and stiffness much of the time. Sometimes the pain is particularly severe in the morning but at other times it seems to never end.
Such is the case for patients with psoriatic arthritis, a type of arthritis that often develops in individuals with a skin condition known as psoriasis. The condition occurs when the body's immune system goes rogue and begins to attack healthy tissues causing skin and joint inflammation.
Patients who have a severe form of the disease receive special drugs, known as tumor necrosis factor (TNF) inhibitors, to suppress their immune system’s activity. But only half of psoriatic patients who take TNF inhibitors feel better, which is why there are ongoing efforts to develop more effective treatments for the disease.
A team led by Krembil Senior Scientist Dr. Dafna Gladman recently published a report in The New England Journal of Medicine that examined whether a drug known as tofacitinib, which is an oral agent, is effective for those who do not respond to TNF inhibitors.
The study involved over 350 patients from fourteen countries who randomly received two different doses of tofacitinib or two different doses of a drug with no active ingredients (placebo).
The researchers found that tofacitinib reduced symptoms associated with psoriatic arthritis in around half of patients, and was about twice as effective as the placebo. It not only reduced joint inflammation but also improved physical function in patients and in certain cases, effectively treated the skin disease.
Explains Dr. Gladman “We did note that a few of the patients who received tofacitinib experienced serious infections. This sometimes occurs when drugs that suppress the body’s immune system are prescribed. These side effects will need to be considered when prescribing the medication. However, for many patients who have no other options, tofacitinib is a promising treatment for control of the arthritis.”
This work was supported by Pfizer.
Gladman D, Rigby W, Azevedo VF, Behrens F, Blanco R, Kaszuba A, Kudlacz E, Wang C, Menon S, Hendrikx T, Kanik KS. Tofacitinib for Psoriatic Arthritis in Patients with an Inadequate Response to TNF Inhibitors. N Engl J Med. 2017 Oct 19;377(16):1525-1536. doi: 10.1056/NEJMoa1615977.
The study was published in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine and was led by Krembil Research Institute Senior Scientist Dr. Dafna Gladman (pictured).