Three abstracts from the ITN’s RAVE study (Rituximab for the Treatment of ANCA-associated Vasculitis and Microscopic Polyangiitis) will be presented at the upcoming American College of Rheumatology (ACR) annual meeting in Washington, DC November on 9-14, 2012.
John Stone, MD (Massachusetts General Hospital) will present “Primary Endpoint Failure in the Rituximab in ANCA-Associated Vasculitis Trial” (Miloslavsky et al.), which explores potential explanations for why certain patients were primary endpoint failures (November 12th, 3pm). Primary results from the RAVE study were reported in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2010 (here), which demonstrated that rituximab is non-inferior to cyclophosphamide for remission induction in severe ANCA-associated vasculitis. The primary endpoint was a disease activity score of 0 and a prednisone dose of 0 mg/d at month 6.
Another abstract, “Predictive value of selected markers of inflammation and platelet activation for complete remission of AAV” (Tomasson et al.; November 13th), examines whether biomarker levels can predict future disease remission.
A third abstract, “The Efficacy of Rituximab vs Cyclophosphamide for Treatment of Renal Disease in ANCA-Associated Vasculitis: The RAVE Trial” (Geetha et al.; Novmber 12th) presents long-term outcomes of patients with renal involvement at baseline.
More information about the RAVE study can be found here.