Vasculitis & polymyalgia rheumatica
Relapses in giant cell arteritis treated with tocilizumab. Retrospective multicenter study of 407 patients in clinical practice
An erratum to this article was published (Semin Arthritis Rheum, Apr 2025 ↗)
Authors' conclusion
In this series, GCA relapses were observed in 15 % of patients, all of them non-severe. Relapses were associated with TCZ therapeutic schedule, such as IV administration, optimization, delayed initiation and previous therapies to TCZ.
Study context
- Population
- Giant Cell Arteritis (GCA) patients treated with tocilizumab (TCZ) between 2016 and 2021 in clinical practice (295 women; mean age 73.6 ± 8.9 years)295 women
- Participants
- 407 patients
- Exposure
- GCA patients with vs without relapses during TCZ treatment
- With relapsesn = 63
- Outcome
- Frequency of GCA relapses during TCZ treatment
- Follow-up
- Mean 25.3 ± 21.7 months
Methodological detailsnational multicentre, observational, multivariate logistic regression
- National multicentre
- Observational
- Multivariate logistic regression
Main finding
As reported in the abstract
Relapses observed
63 of 407
15.5 %
Observational data: associations, not effects.
Further findings
Factors associated with GCA relapse (multivariate logistic regression)
| OR (CI) | ||
|---|---|---|
| TCZ initiation later than 6 weeks | 3.446 (1.196–9.931) | |
| Optimization | 2.803 (1.507–5.215) | |
| IV TCZ | 2.327 (1.244–4.353) | |
| Previous therapies to TCZ | 5.062 (2.402–10.665) | |
| 0.050.21520Odds ratio (log scale) |
Time to first relapse
- Median time to the first relapse, months [range as printed]
- 12 [6-24]
Most frequent relapse manifestations
%
- PMR
- 47.6
- Headache
- 12.7
Baseline features, patients with vs without relapses · TCZ initiation
- No differences in demographic, clinical and laboratory features or corticosteroid dose
Original publication
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