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Daily practice feasibility and effectiveness of treating long-standing rheumatoid arthritis to target with synthetic disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs: a prospective cohort study

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Abstract

To prospectively study the daily practice feasibility and effectiveness of treat-to-target (T2T) strategy with synthetic drugs aiming to maintain and achieve disease remission or low activity based on DAS28 and CDAI in long-standing rheumatoid (RA) patients. Two hundred and forty-one consecutive RA patients from Hospital de Clínicas de Porto Alegre were followed for 14 (±5.3) months. At follow-up, patients were evaluated by a rheumatologist at least once every 3 to 4 months. Treatment was adjusted following a step-up strategy, based on the disease activity scores (DAS28 and CDAI), aiming at remission (<2.6 or <2.8, respectively) or at least low disease activity (<3.2 or <10). Patients were predominantly women (84.7 %), mean age 54.9 (±11.9) years with 11.1 (±7.4) years of disease duration. At visit 4, T2T intervention significantly reduced DAS28 (4.6 ± 1.6 vs. 4.0 ± 1.5; p < 0.005), CDAI [17.8 (8.2–28.7) vs. 12.6 (5.1–22.5); p < 0.001], and HAQ (1.5 ± 0.9 vs. 1.3 ± 0.8; p = 0.002). At the end of the study, compared to the baseline scores, more patients achieved remission by DAS28 (11.6 vs. 18.6 %; p < 0.001) and CDAI (8.1 vs. 13.6 %; p < 0.001) and also low disease activity by DAS28 (9.8 vs. 13.0 %; p < 0.001) and CDAI (23.9 vs. 28.4 %; p < 0.001). Both average doses of sulfasalazine and methotrexate at visit 4 were higher (1375 vs. 1621 mg, p = 0.024; and 14.5 vs. 16.5 mg, p < 0.001, respectively). More patients were on combination therapy at the end of the follow-up (48.2 vs. 52.3 %; p < 0.001). The implementation of T2T strategy in the treatment of RA was feasible and effective in this outpatient population. The optimization of synthetic DMARDs use with dose adjustments and combinations of drugs seemed to improve disease outcome regarding disease activity and functional status.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Hospital de Clínicas de Porto Alegre, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Rua Ramiro Barcelos, 2350, sala 645, Porto Alegre, RS, 90035-903, Brazil

    Claiton Viegas Brenol, Rafael Mendonça Silva da Chakr, Nicole Pamplona Bueno Andrade, Mariana Toni, João Carlos Tavares Brenol & Ricardo Machado Xavier

  2. Universidade de São Paulo, Av. Dr. Arnaldo 455-3° andar, sala 3133, São Paulo, SP, 01246-903, Brazil

    Ieda Maria Magalhães Laurindo

Authors
  1. Claiton Viegas Brenol
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  2. Rafael Mendonça Silva da Chakr
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  3. Nicole Pamplona Bueno Andrade
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  4. Mariana Toni
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  5. Ieda Maria Magalhães Laurindo
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  6. João Carlos Tavares Brenol
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  7. Ricardo Machado Xavier
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Correspondence to Rafael Mendonça Silva da Chakr.

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Brenol, C.V., da Chakr, R.M.S., Andrade, N.P.B. et al. Daily practice feasibility and effectiveness of treating long-standing rheumatoid arthritis to target with synthetic disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs: a prospective cohort study. Clin Rheumatol 34, 1781–1785 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10067-015-2915-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10067-015-2915-0

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