title: Recently diagnosed rheumatoid arthritis patients benefit from a treat-to-target strategy: results from the DREAM registry.
abstract: Despite considerable evidence on the efficacy and safety of early aggressive treat-to-target (T2T) strategies in early rheumatoid arthritis (RA), a proportion of patients still fail to reach remission. The goal of this study is to examine remission rates and predictors of remission in a real life T2T cohort of consecutive patients with a recent diagnosis of RA. Baseline demographics, clinical, laboratory and patient-reported variables and 1-year follow-up disease activity data were used from patients with early RA included in the DREAM remission induction cohort II study. Survival analyses and simple and multivariable logistic regression analyses were used to examine remission rates and significant predictors of achieving remission. A total of 137 recently diagnosed consecutive RA patients were available for this study. During the first year after inclusion, DAS28 remission was achieved at least once in 77.2 % of the patients and the median time to first remission was 17 weeks. None of the examined baseline variables were robustly associated with achieving remission within 1 year and in the multivariable analysis only lower ESR (p = 0.005) remained significantly associated with achieving fast remission within 17 weeks. During the first year of their disease a high proportion of recently diagnosed RA patient achieved remission, with only a small percentage of patients needing bDMARD therapy. Combined with the absence of baseline predictors of remission, this suggests that clinicians in daily clinical practice may focus on DAS28 scores only, without needing to take other patients characteristics into account.
authors: Arthritis Center Twente, Department of Rheumatology, Medisch Spectrum Twente, PO BOX 50 000, 7500 KA, Enschede, The Netherlands. lmm.steunebrink@mst.nl.|Department Psychology, Health & Technology, University of Twente, Enschede, The Netherlands. lmm.steunebrink@mst.nl.
authors: Laura M M
authors: LM
authors: Steunebrink
authors: Arthritis Center Twente, Department of Rheumatology, Medisch Spectrum Twente, PO BOX 50 000, 7500 KA, Enschede, The Netherlands.|Department Psychology, Health & Technology, University of Twente, Enschede, The Netherlands.
authors: Harald E
authors: HE
authors: Vonkeman
authors: Department Psychology, Health & Technology, University of Twente, Enschede, The Netherlands.
authors: Peter M
authors: PM
authors: ten Klooster
authors: Department of Rheumatology, Isala, Zwolle, The Netherlands.
authors: Monique
authors: M
authors: Hoekstra
authors: Department of Rheumatology, Bernhoven, Uden, The Netherlands.
authors: Piet L C M
authors: PL
authors: van Riel
authors: Arthritis Center Twente, Department of Rheumatology, Medisch Spectrum Twente, PO BOX 50 000, 7500 KA, Enschede, The Netherlands.|Department Psychology, Health & Technology, University of Twente, Enschede, The Netherlands.
authors: Mart A F J
authors: MA
authors: van de Laar
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D018501:Antirheumatic Agents / Q000627:therapeutic use*; D001172:Arthritis, Rheumatoid / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000188:drug therapy*; D015331:Cohort Studies; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008727:Methotrexate / Q000627:therapeutic use*; D008875:Middle Aged; D012042:Registries; D012074:Remission Induction / Q000379:methods*; D012720:Severity of Illness Index; D016896:Treatment Outcome
chemical_list: D018501:Antirheumatic Agents; D008727:Methotrexate
keywords: Clinical practice; ESR; Early rheumatoid arthritis; Predictors; Remission; Treat-to-target