Rituximab for refractory eosinophilic fasciitis: a case series with long-term follow-up and literature review.

KEY MESSAGE: RTX could be an effective and safe alternative treatment for refractory EF. Rituximab (RTX) is a successful therapeutic option for various autoimmune diseases. Our aim is to report our experience with RTX in eosinophilic fasciitis (EF) and review published data on its efficacy for the treatment of EF. We reviewed the medical charts of all patients with a diagnosis of EF treated with RTX from 2008 to 2020 in the Department of Rheumatology and Clinical Immunology in the University Hospital of Heraklion, Crete, Greece. We also reviewed the English literature for cases of EF treated with RTX. Demographics, clinical manifestations, laboratory findings, prior treatments, response to RTX, cumulative RTX dose, duration of treatment and follow-up are reported. We report three cases of EF refractory to conventional DMARDs (cDMARDs) that responded to RTX. Furthermore, literature review revealed five cases. In our case series in all patients, RTX was the first biologic. RTX could be effective in cases of (EF) refractory to standard immunosuppressive treatment.

High 3-year golimumab survival in patients with rheumatoid arthritis, ankylosing spondylitis and psoriatic arthritis: real world data from 328 patients.

OBJECTIVES: Our primary objective was to study the long-term survival on drug (SOD) of patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA), psoriatic arthritis (PsA) and ankylosing spondylitis (AS) treated with golimumab (GLM) in real life settings. METHODS: This was a retrospective, observational study of all patients treated with GLM in 4 Academic Centres in Greece during a 4-year period (09/2010-06/2014). SOD was analysed using Kaplan-Meier survival analysis, while Cox regression analysis estimating hazard ratios (HRs) for different baseline variables associated with drug discontinuation was performed for each disease. RESULTS: 328 patients (RA: 166, PsA: 82, AS: 80) were included. The estimated SOD at 2 and 3 years was 68% and 62% overall and was better for AS (79% and 76%) compared to RA (69% and 60%, p=0.067) and PsA (58% and 53%, p=0.001) patients; no difference was noted between RA and PsA patients (p=0.204). There was no difference in SOD between biologic-naïve and experienced nor between non-biologic co-treated or GLM monotherapy treated patients. Seropositivity (rheumatoid factor and/or anti-cyclic citrullinated peptide antibodies) was associated with a lower risk for GLM discontinuation by multivariate analysis (HR=0.5, 95% CI=0.0.25-1.1, p=0.05) in RA patients. During 606 patient-years of follow-up, 11 (3.3%) patients discontinued GLM due to adverse events (AE), accounting for 11% of treatment discontinuations. The rates of serious AEs and serious infections were 2.3 and 1.0/100-patient-years, respectively. CONCLUSIONS: In this real-life study, GLM showed a high 3-year SOD in patients with inflammatory arthritides with a low rate of discontinuation due to AEs.