Efficacy and safety of rituximab in moderately‐to‐severely active systemic lupus erythematosus: The randomized, double‐blind, phase ii/iii systemic lupus erythematosus evaluation of rituximab trial

The EXPLORER trial enrolled patients with moderately-to-severely active SLE and used aggressive background treatment and sensitive cutoffs for nonresponse. No differences were noted between placebo and rituximab in the primary and secondary end points. Further evaluation of patient subsets, biomarkers, and exploratory outcome models may improve the design of future SLE clinical trials.