Efficacy of tacrolimus combined with methotrezate in the treatment of patients with refractory rheumatoid arthritis / 中华风湿病学杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective To assess the efficacy and safety of tacrolimus (TAC) combined with methotrexate (MTX) for the treatment of refractory rheumatoid arthritis (RA),and to compare it with cyclophosphamide (CTX) added to MTX for the treatment of refractory RA.Methods Thirty-six cases of refractory RA patients were divided into the observation group and the control group.TAC+MTX were used in the observation group,and CTX+MTX were used in the control group.We used repeated measures to analyze the variance and Fisher exact probability method to analyze the efficacy at 8 weeks and 24 weeks.Results The effective rate of the observation group in 8 weeks,24 weeks were 77.8％(14 cases) and 100％(18 cases) respectively,while those of the control group were 11.1％ (2 cases) and 44.4％(8 cases),it showed that both TAC+MTX and CTX+MTX in the treatment of refractory RA were effective,but the efficacy of TAC+MTX was better than CTX+MTX,the difference of C reactive protein (CRP) and disease activity score (DAS)28 was statistically significant (P＜0.05),and it could significantly improve the clinical symptoms and laboratory indexes.Conclusion TAC+MTX is effective and safe in treating refractory RA,and is worth of spreading.