Influence of shortage/expected shortage of tocilizumab on treatment decisions in rheumatoid arthritis and giant cell arteritis
| Influenced decision to start tocilizumab de novo | |||
| Rheumatoid arthritis | Giant cell arteritis | ||
| n=707* | n=663* | ||
| No influence | 599 (85%) | No influence | 614 (93%) |
| Preference of another bDMARD/tsDMARD | 76 (11%) | Preference of MTX or another csDMARD | 24 (4%) |
| Postponement of treatment with TCZ | 32 (5%) | Postponement of treatment with TCZ | 19 (3%) |
| Sarilumab used off-label | 6 (1%) | ||
| Influenced decision to modify treatment with tocilizumab in patients with stable disease | |||
| n=925* | n=788* | ||
| No influence | 683 (74%) | No influence | 709 (90%) |
| Switch of intravenous to subcutaneous TCZ | 191 (21%) | Switch of intravenous to subcutaneous TCZ | 65 (8%) |
| Prolongation of administration interval | 28 (3%) | Prolongation of administration interval | 10 (1%) |
| Change of TCZ to another DMARD | 5 (0.6%) | Change of TCZ to another DMARD | 2 (0.3%) |
| Change of TCZ to sarilumab | 18 (2%) | Stopped treatment with TCZ | 2 (0.3%) |
*Total number of answers to this question.
MTX; methotrexate; b, biological; cs, conventional synthetic; DMARD, disease modifying anti-rheumatic drug; TCZ, tocilizumab; ts, targeted synthetic.