Terapia a lungo termine dell'artrite reumatoide con aurotiomalato di sodio a basso dosaggio e methotrexate: comparazione tra curve di persistenza nella terapia.

After 3 years of therapy, two groups of RA patients, one treated with MTX, the other with low dose sodium aurothimalate were evaluated for treatment drop-out. Both groups were made up of 35 patients of comparable age, disease duration and radiological status. The treatment survival curves, prepared using the Kaplan-Mayer method, were compared for the two drugs. This comparison did not reveal any statistically significant differences between the two groups over the course of the study period. With both drugs, after 3 years of treatment, 51.4% of the patients were still under therapy. These results are similar to those obtained by other authors using MTX. On the other hand, the date in the literature for sodium aurothiomalte treatment shows 20-30% of the patients continuing treatment after 3 years: much lower than the present result. This difference may be due to the greater number of side effects induced by the higher doses of the gold compound administered by other authors. This hypoth...