Key clinical point: Modern management of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) led to a larger proportion of patients achieving remission with fewer corticosteroids and more biologics over a 7-year follow-up period.
Major finding: Twice as many patients with RA were in remission at 7-year follow-up vs. at 1 year. Patients achieving remission at 7 years were more likely to be using biological disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs (DMARD) and conventional DMARD ( P = .02), whereas corticosteroids ( P = .02) at higher doses ( P = .013) were mostly prescribed to patients not achieving remission at 7 years.
Study details: The data come from a retrospective study of 215 patients with RA whose clinical and biological data were analyzed at 1 year (2009) and 7 years (2015).
Disclosures: The authors declared no source of funding or conflicts of interest .
Source: Larid G et al. Increased remission with fewer corticosteroids and more biologics in rheumatoid arthritis at 7-year follow-up in real-life conditions. Sci Rep. 2022;12:2563 (Feb 15). Doi: 10.1038/s41598-022-06584-y