Table 4.
Reasons for FAE treatment discontinuation according to treatment group
| FAE monotherapy | FAEs + phototherapy | FAEs + MTX | All | P‐valuea | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Patients initiating FAE therapy, N | 626 | 123 | 110 | 859 | |
| Total patients terminating therapy, n (% of N ) | 188 (30.0) | 48 (39.0) | 48 (43.6) | 284 (33.1) | 0.0063 |
| Reasons for discontinuation, n (% of N ) | |||||
| Adverse event | 81 (12.9) | 14 (11.4) | 15 (13.6) | 110 (12.8) | <0.0001 |
| Lack of efficacy (or lower than expected improvement) | 26 (4.2) | 16 (13.0) | 21 (19.1) | 63 (7.3) | |
| Clinical remission | 49 (7.8) | 4 (3.3) | 4 (3.6) | 57 (6.6) | |
| Patient choice | 11 (1.8) | 8 (6.5) | 5 (4.5) | 24 (2.8) | |
| Other reasons | 16 (2.6) | 4 (3.3) | 3 (2.7) | 23 (2.7) | |
| Pregnancy or intention to become pregnant | 4 (0.6) | 2 (1.6) | 0 | 6 (0.7) | |
| Death (from treatment‐unrelated causesb) | 1 (0.2) | 0 | 0 | 1 (0.1) | |
a
P‐value derived from chi‐square test.
b
Acute ischaemic stroke.
FAEs, fumaric acid esters; phototherapy, ultraviolet A, ultraviolet B or psoralen + ultraviolet A; MTX, methotrexate. Other reasons included not specified, non‐compliance, no reimbursement and switch to an alternative systemic drug.