Poor Prognosis Associated with Disease Progression in Rheumatoid Arthritis

The rate of disease progression in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) can be associated with a poor prognosis in patients. A study recently investigated patients with RA through the number of poor prognostic factors (PPF), finding that the number of PPFs did not significantly predict biologic or biologic/targeted synthetic disease-modifying antirheumatic drug (tsDMARD).

The researchers used the Corrona Rheumatoid Arthritis Registry to identify biologic-naïve patients who have been diagnosed with RA and had a 12-month follow-up, from January 2005 to December 2015. The registry was also used to categorize patients by PPF, while changes in medication, Clinical Disease Activity Index (CDAI), and work status were assessed with linear and logistic regression models.

“The presence of many [PPFs] in patients with recent-onset RA has been associated with increased risk of disease progression in both clinical trials and observational studies,” the authors stated. “However, a single, universal list of PPF does not exist in RA, and there are important distinctions between how these factors are described by the American College of Rheumatology (ACR) and the European League Against Rheumatism (EULAR).”

PPFs that were considered in the analysis included functional limitation, extraarticular disease, seropositivity, and erosions, which were used to evaluate treatment acceleration, clinical outcomes, and work status over the course of 12-months.

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