Glucocorticoid use after the induction phase in clinical trials*
| N (at baseline)† | % GC use 12 months | % GC use 24 months | |
| COBRA light arm COBRA light | 81 | 60‡ | – |
| COBRA light arm COBRA classic | 81 | 60‡ | – |
| IMPROVED early remission | 387 | 24.8 | 10.2 |
| IMPROVED arm 1 | 83 | 17.3 | 4.0 |
| IMPROVED arm 2 | 78 | 0 | 0 |
| BeSt arm 3 | 131 | 43.2 | 27.6 |
| CareRA arm COBRA classic | 98 | 7.8 | – |
| CareRA arm COBRA slim | 98 | 4.5 | – |
| CareRA arm COBRA avant garde | 93 | 4.7 | – |
| CareRA arm COBRA slim (low risk) | 43 | 5.3 | – |
*Data reported per treatment arm of the four included clinical trials which have data on GC use after the induction phase published. Reported here: percentages use over time (no discontinuation rates were reported, except for COBRA light at 12 months). For tapering protocols see table 1.
†number of patients shown at baseline, at which treatment was initiated.
‡COBRA light only reported an approximation of the percentage of patients who could taper prednisone to zero in week 26 and 39, which we recalculated to a percentage of patients still using GC for comparison with the other trials.
GC, glucocorticoids; N, number.