New treatment possibilities for rheumatoid arthritis: the Russian experience in using certolizumab pegol

Certolizumab pegol (CZP) is a new drug from the group of tumor necrosis factor a inhibitors. The efficacy and safety CZP in the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) have been studied in the international 52-week RAPID-1 and 24-week RAPID-2 clinical trials that studied the use of CZP in combination with methotrexate (MTX) in patients with active RA unresponsive to MTX. The study populations of the RAPID 1 and RAPID 2 trials constituted the major portion of Russian patients (11.8 and 18.4%, respectively), including that in the prolonged open-labeled phases. The results of using CZP in Russian patients in the RAPID trials showed that they displayed a highly stable response to treatment and a rapidly developing clinical effect, that a therapy response could be predicted in the first 12 weeks, and that the incidence of local postinjection reactions was low.