Leflunomide (Arava): time to change prescribing recommendations? Part 2

The results of the looking at were compared with the
recommendations in the most recent summary of upshot characteristics
for leflunomide.

There were 57 (79%) rheumatologists who returned the
questionnaire.
Of these, 3 did not prescribe Arava.
Almost half of the responders who prescribed leflunomide used it as the
one-third drug in their typical DMARD series, while 17% used it as the
rank DMARD.

Of the prescribers, 41% never used the ware dose, 22% usually did, 26% usually did not, and 11% always did.
The main factors influencing care in using the merchandise dose were gastrointestinal side effects and other perniciousness.
Some consultants adopted a starting dose of 10 mg/day, increasing to 20 mg/day if tolerated.

Interestingly,
almost 60% of consultants advised patients that occasional alcoholic
drink uptake was acceptable, with many commenting that patients might
refuse leflunomide if there were an intoxicant ban.
Of the others, 22% advised no drinkable restraint, and only 18.5%
followed the advice of the SPC of avoiding drinkable.

Against
SPC recommendations, almost 50% never used a cholestyramine or
activated-charcoal loser for swapping leflunomide to another DMARD and
30% used one occasionally.

Some commented that they
used shorter unsuccessful person periods than the recommended 11 days
as few patients could tolerate this fundamental quantity of time.

Although
the SPC warns against mathematical operation therapy, nearly 60% of
respondents combined leflunomide with methotrexate occasionally, and
15% did so “usually.” Coalition therapy was never used by a simple
fraction of the rheumatologists.

This is a part of article Leflunomide (Arava): time to change prescribing recommendations? Part 2 Taken from "Arava Information" Information Blog