Impact of tocilizumab administered intravenously or subcutaneously on patient-reported quality-of-life outcomes in patients with rheumatoid arthritis.

Objective: Randomised controlled trials (RCTs) have shown tocilizumab (TCZ) administered intravenously or subcutaneously with conventional synthetic disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs (csDMARDs) to be superior to csDMARDs alone for improving rheumatoid arthritis (RA) disease activity. This study evaluated the effect of TCZ-intravenous and TCZ-subcutaneous on patient-reported outcomes (PROs) in three RCT populations.

Methods: OPTION (NCT00106548), BREVACTA (NCT01232569) and SUMMACTA (NCT01194414) were independent RCTs evaluating the efficacy and safety of TCZ-intravenous and/or TCZ-subcutaneous with csDMARDs in patients with RA. PROs included patient global assessment, pain, Health Assessment Questionnaire-Disability Index, Functional Assessment of Chronic Illness Therapy-Fatigue and Short Form-36. Study outcomes included the proportions of patients reporting changes from baseline in PRO scores ≥ minimum clinically important differences (MCID) and scores ≥ age and gender-matched normative values.

Results: In OPTION, more patients who received TCZ-intravenous reported improvements in PROs ≥MCID (50%-82% vs 31%-57%) and scores ≥ normative values (16%-44% vs 5%-28%) at week 16 compared with placebo. Similarly, a greater proportion of patients in BREVACTA who received TCZ-subcutaneous reported improvements ≥ MCID (54%-73% vs 42%-55%) and scores ≥ normative values (8%-34% vs 4%-25%) at week 12 compared with placebo. In SUMMACTA, 61%-84% of patients who received TCZ-subcutaneous and 64%-84% of those who received TCZ-intravenous reported improvements ≥ MCID and 14%-41% and 15%-24%, respectively, scores ≥ normative values at week 24.

Conclusions: TCZ-intravenous or TCZ-subcutaneous with csDMARDs resulted in more patients reporting clinically meaningful improvements and PRO scores ≥ normative values compared with placebo. These improvements were similar with TCZ-intravenous and TCZ-subcutaneous.