RA Treatment: Triple Therapy

Rheumatologists will often begin their newly diagnosed patients on conventional DMARDs such as methotrexate (MTX), sulfasalazine (SSZ), hydroxychloroquine (HCQ), each alone or in any combination.  In fact, when combining the three drugs, it is commonly known as “triple therapy” and is often used as a step-up in treatment after trying MTX alone.

Triple therapy as a treatment approach to RA has received recent attention in the news due to a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) on June 11, 2013.  In this study, no significant difference in disease activity was demonstrated in patients who received triple therapy as compared to those who received treatment with etanercept + methotrexate. All the patients prior to enrolling in this study had experienced active disease despite methotrexate therapy alone (O’Dell, 2013).

In a similar study, the Treatment of Early Aggressive Rheumatoid Arthritis (TEAR) study, patients were randomly assigned to MTX monotherapy (alone), triple therapy, or MTX + etanercept with no significant difference in primary outcome (based on Disease Activity Severity DAS28 scores) between the latter two groups. However, x-rays did show more disease progression in the triple therapy group.

Read this post in its entirety:
What is the Role of Triple Therapy in RA?