Question
I have been on Enbrel for about 10 months for RA. It has helped a lot, but I still have some stiffness. My Dr. thinks I should move to Humira or Remicade. My question is: should I feel total relief or just be thankful for the amount of relief that I have had? Also, after reading today, I see that Humira and Enbrel are not exactly the same drug. What are the general results of people who change from Enbrel to Humira? Thank you very much!
Answer
While Humira, Enbrel and Remicade all inhibit the inflammatory molecule, tumor necrosis factor (TNF), they are completely different drugs and work differently. The clinical trials show that the safety and effectiveness of all three drugs are similiar in RA, meaning equal percentages of patients respond to each of the three drugs. However, an individual patient may do better on one drug over another. We don’t have a lot of information on switching from one TNF drug to another. But some studies have shown that approximately 40-50% of patients not doing well on one TNF drug, will respond to another. It doesn’t appear to matter which drugs are being switched.
