Background and importance Adalimumab is a human monoclonal recombinant antibody whose mechanism of action is mediated by binding specifically to tumour necrosis factor (TNF), neutralising its function. Adalimumab is indicated for the treatment of progression of pathologies such as rheumatoid arthritis, ankylosing spondylitis and psoriatic arthritis.

Aim and objectives To calculate the overall survival of adalimumab in patients diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis, ankylosing spondylitis and psoriatic arthritis in our hospital.

Material and methods A retrospective study was performed in which all patients diagnosed with these pathologies who initiated treatment with adalimumab from January 2007 to December 2016 were included. Data for start date, date of discontinuation of treatment if suspension occurred, sex and age of the patients were collected. Adalimumab’s persistence was calculated in months from the beginning of treatment to the last dispensation register. We collected dispensation data from January 2007 to May 2019 to calculate adalimumab’s persistence until this date. The drug’s survival was calculated using the Kaplan–Meier method and the log rank test to compare survival in each of the pathologies. A significant difference was considered with a p value <0.05.

Results 125 patients started treatment with adalimumab between January 2007 and December 2016; 48 patients (38.4%) were diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis, 43 (34.4%) with ankylosing spondylitis and 34 (27.2%) with psoriasis arthritis. 52.1% of all patients were naïve for biological drug treatments. 83.3%, 48.8% and 52.9% were women aged 57.6±43.8, 47.1±10.1 and 55.6 ±14.0 years in the rheumatoid arthritis, ankylosing spondylitis and psoriatic arthritis groups, respectively.

After analysing the data using the Kaplan–Meier method, we obtained an overall survival of adalimumab in each pathology, which was greatest in psoriatic arthritis with 59.9 months (95% CI 39.6 to 80,2), followed by 46.8 months in rheumatoid arthritis (95% CI 31.5 to 62.0) and 38.8 months (95% CI 25.1 to 52.4) in ankylosing spondylitis. When we compared the different pathologies by the log rank test, adalimumab’ s persistence was statistically significant for rheumatoid arthritis and ankylosing spondylitis (p<0.00513, p<0.0025, respectively)

Conclusion and relevance Adalimumab is a biologic drug with proven therapeutic efficacy in the treatment of theses pathologies. According to our data, adalimumab showed considerable persistence, which was greatest in psoriatic arthritis.

Conflict of interest No conflict of interest