BACKGROUND/AIMS To evaluate the cost-effectiveness of ranibizumab as either monotherapy or combined with laser therapy, compared with laser monotherapy, in the treatment of diabetic macular oedema (DME) causing visual impairment from a UK healthcare payer perspective. METHODS A Markov model simulated long-term outcomes and costs of treating DME in one eye (BCVA ≤75 letters) based on data from...

We retrospectively analyzed the p.V158F polymorphism of Fcγ-receptor IIIA (FCGR3A, CD16) in patients with PTLD treated with rituximab monotherapy. Previous reports had indicated that the lower affinity F allele affects rituximab-mediated antibody-dependent cellular cytotoxicity (ADCC) and is linked to inferior outcome of rituximab monotherapy in B cell malignancies. 25 patients with PTLD after ...

OBJECTIVES To examine the effectiveness of tocilizumab (TCZ) with and without synthetic disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs (sDMARDs) in a large observational study. METHODS Patients with rheumatoid arthritis treated with TCZ who had a baseline visit and information on concomitant sDMARDs were included. According to baseline data, patients were considered as taking TCZ as monotherapy or com...

OBJECTIVE To report on the 5-year efficacy and safety results of the AMBITION (Actemra versus Methotrexate double-Blind Investigative Trial In mONotherapy) monotherapy study (ClinicalTrials.gov: NCT00109408, NCT00720798). METHODS Patients with rheumatoid arthritis for whom biologics had not failed or who did not discontinue methotrexate because of lack of efficacy or tolerability were followe...

Monotherapy has been promoted as the ideal in epilepsy treatment because of reduced side effects, absence of drug interactions, better compliance, lower cost and, in many cases, improved seizure control compared to polytherapy. The question of monotherapy vs. polytherapy has assumed increasing importance with the availability of multiple new antiepileptic drugs (AEDs), initially tested as add-o...

Sirs, I read with interest the paper (1) and the accompanying editorial (2) published in the Lancet regarding the ADACTA trial. However, there are issues with this editorial, which seems to reach conclusions not justified by the data from the trial. Monotherapy in RA may be a possibility for some patients (3) but which agent or agents should be preferred has not been studied in comparative stud...

To evaluate the efficacy and safety of pegylated-interferon (Peg-IFN) treatment as monotherapy or in combination with nucleoside analogues (NAs) for treating chronic hepatis B (CHB) infection.Searches of PubMed, OVID, EMBASE, and the Chinese Medical (WanFang, CNKI, and VIP) databases were conducted to identify all relevant randomized controlled trials published since January 1990. Twelve studie...

OBJECTIVE To examine the efficacy, safety, and tolerability of travoprost 0.004% benzalkonium chloride (BAK)-free compared with previous use of latanoprost 0.005% in Japanese patients living in the US who had primary open-angle glaucoma or ocular hypertension. METHODS This was an open-label, multicenter, bilateral, intraindividual, and active-controlled study in which 20 Japanese American pat...

INTRODUCTION The efficacy of protease inhibitor monotherapy has been analyzed with different endpoints: initial HIV-1 RNA rebound, long-term HIV-1 RNA suppression after re-intensification, treatment-emergent drug resistance, neurocognitive testing and HIV-1 RNA in the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF). METHODS A PUBMED search identified nine randomised trials of PI monotherapy versus triple therapy i...

BACKGROUND Given the availability of a number of alternative biologic treatment options and other novel disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs (DMARDs) for the treatment of patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA), clinicians are faced with an increasingly challenging choice regarding optimal treatment. Biologics are usually combined with traditional DMARDs, primarily methotrexate (MTX), but some...