medwireNews: Extension results from the ABILITY-1 trial support the long-term benefits of adalimumab for patients with nonradiographic axial spondyloarthritis (axSpA).
These findings indicate that the gains observed in the original 12-week ABILITY-1 study are maintained over 3 years of continuous open-label treatment with adalimumab, say Désirée van der Heijde (Leiden University Medical Center, the Netherlands) and co-investigators in Arthritis Research & Therapy.
Indeed, the proportion of patients in clinical remission – defined as an Ankylosing Spondylitis Disease Activity Score below 1.3 points – remained consistent or increased over the duration of the extension study, both among the 91 patients who received adalimumab throughout the study and among the 94 participants initially allocated to placebo and switched to adalimumab at week 12.
Improvements in sacroiliac joint and spinal inflammation scores were also maintained over the duration of follow-up, with reductions from baseline in Spondyloarthritis Research Consortium of Canada scores of 3.8 points and 1.4 points, respectively, at the 2-year follow-up.
And similar results were seen in the subpopulation of 142 patients who had magnetic resonance imaging evidence of inflammation at trial baseline, “for whom anti-[tumor necrosis factor] therapy, including adalimumab, is currently approved,” say the researchers.
They note that “[n]o new safety concerns were observed” in the open-label extension period.
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