Adalimumab 'reduces bone loss in the hand'

Anti-TNF therapy adalimumab reduces bone loss in the hand in early rheumatoid arthritis, new research has revealed.

Scientists from the Norwegian University of science and technology and the University of Oslo, along with Abbot Laboratories and Sectra, observed 768 patients who suffered from rheumatoid arthritis for less than three years. They were divided into three groups, and were treated with a combination of adalimumab (brand name Humira) and methotrexate, methotrexate alone and adalimumab alone.

The research was published in the Annals of Rheumatic Diseases.

Results showed that bone loss was the lowest in the combination group and greatest in the methotrexate monotherapy, with figures in the middle for the adalimumab monotherapy group.

Significant differences between the combination group and the methotrexate group were seen at 52 weeks and 104 weeks.

However, the researchers concluded that "the combination of adalimumab and methotrexate seems to arrest hand bone loss less effectively than radiographic joint damage".

They suggested that "quantitative measures of osteoporosis may be a more sensitive tool for assessment of inflammatory bone involvement in rheumatoid arthritis".

A spokesman for the Arthritis Research Campaign said that anti-TNF therapies in combination with methotrexate were remarkably successful in treating many of the symptoms of inflammatory arthritis.

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