Adalimumab (ADA) has been already proved to have better efficacy as monotherapy in rheumatoid arthritis treatment. This study by Yoshida T et al. described that the reduction of pain during injection decreases the burden on the patient and improves their adherence, which has a positive impact on the outcomes of rheumatoid arthritis treatment.

This study focused on investigating the effect of the change to the existing formulation of adalimumab (ADA) on pain and treatment motivation.

We divided injection pain into the following categories: overall pain, pain at needle insertion, pain during drug injection, and pain 10 min after injection; we evaluated the effect of the change to the existing formulation on pain using a visual analog scale. Also, a faces pain scale was used to assess the impact of change in injection pain intensity on treatment motivation.

Compared with the existing ADA formulation, the new formulation was associated with lower scores of overall pain (1.6 vs 6.7), pain at needle insertion (1.8 vs 4.7), pain during injection (1.6 vs 7.0), and pain 10 min after the injection (0.4 vs 3.1). All results showed a significant difference. Paired t-tests were used for the same. In the survey, 68% and 80% of the patients reported injection pain with influenza vaccine and the current formulation, respectively; but, the proportion of the patients who encountered pain with the new formulation decreased to 20%.

The new ADA formulation found to alleviate the burden on RA patients and improve the quality of adherence to treatment, thereby influencing the RA treatment outcomes.