Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2016 Sep;26(5):662-6.
doi: 10.3109/14397595.2015.1129692. Epub 2016 Feb 16.

Evaluation of switching from intravenous to subcutaneous formulation of tocilizumab in patients with rheumatoid arthritis

Naoki Iwamoto  1 , Shoichi Fukui  1 , Masataka Umeda  1 , Ayako Nishino  1 , Yoshikazu Nakashima  1 , Takahisa Suzuki  1 , Yoshiro Horai  1 , Fumiaki Nonaka  2 , Akitomo Okada  3 , Tomohiro Koga  1 , Shin-Ya Kawashiri  4 , Keita Fujikawa  5 , Toshiyuki Aramaki  6 , Kunihiro Ichinose  1 , Yasuko Hirai  1 , Mami Tamai  1 , Hideki Nakamura  1 , Kaoru Terada  6 , Munetoshi Nakashima  3 , Akinari Mizokami  5 , Tomoki Origuchi  7 , Katsumi Eguchi  2 , Yukitaka Ueki  6 , Atsushi Kawakami  1
Affiliations

Evaluation of switching from intravenous to subcutaneous formulation of tocilizumab in patients with rheumatoid arthritis

Naoki Iwamoto et al. Mod Rheumatol. 2016 Sep.

Abstract

Objective: To evaluate the efficacy of switching the route from intravenous tocilizumab (TCZ) infusion (TCZ-IV) to subcutaneous TCZ injection (TCZ-SC) in a real-world setting through a comparison of the clinical response.

Methods: Fifty-eight rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients, for whom TCZ-SC was initiated following TCZ-IV between June 2013 and August 2014, were consecutively enrolled. Disease activity score (DAS)28-ESR, simplified disease activity index (SDAI), and clinical disease activity index (CDAI) were examined at baseline and after switching from TCZ-IV to TCZ-SC for 3 months. We investigated whether body weight and body mass index (BMI) affected the efficacy of TCZ-SC.

Results: Most of the patients had achieved remission or low disease activity at baseline (77.6% examined by DAS28). Fifty-seven patients (98%) continued the TCZ-SC treatment, and the disease activity was well controlled after 3 months. ΔDAS28 tended to be worsened after switching to TCZ-SC in the high-body-weight groups (≥60 kg) as compared with the groups with body weight <60 kg, although no statistical significance was found. BMI did not affect the efficacy of TCZ-SC.

Conclusions: Caution should be exercised in the high-body-weight subjects, but these data indicate that TCZ-SC maintains the favorable RA disease activity established using TCZ-IV.

Keywords: Rheumatoid arthritis; Subcutaneous injection; Tocilizumab.

PubMed Disclaimer