Difficult-to-treat rheumatoid arthritis in the clinical practice of a rheumatological hospital. First look

Abstract

Objective: to compare the course of the disease and therapy in rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients who meet and do not meet the criteria for difficult- to-treat RA (D2T).Patients and methods. The study included RA patients who met the 2010 ACR/EULAR criteria and who were hospitalized in the V.A. Nasonova Research Institute of Rheumatology from March to October 2021. All patients underwent a conventional clinical and laboratory examination, radiography of the hands and distal feet, and the radiological stage of RA according to Steinbroker was assessed. To determine the inflammatory activity, the DAS28-ESR and DAS28-CRP indices were calculated.Results and discussion. The study included 303 patients with RA, 25 (8.4%) of them had D2T RA. The duration of RA in the D2T group was significantly longer than in other patients (15.9±11.8 and 11.9±9 years, respectively; p=0.04). X-ray changes in the joints in D2T were more pronounced. Patients with D2T had higher inflammatory activity at the time of hospitalization than patients who had continued prior therapy with biologic/targeted synthetic DMARDs. The dose of glucocorticoids (GC) in patients with D2T RA was higher compared to patients of other groups: on average 8.3±5.1 and 6.4±2.9 mg/day, respectively (p=0.02).Conclusion. The results of this study suggest that in Russia, as well as abroad, the treat-to-target principle has not yet become widespread, and the selection of adequate therapy takes too much time. At the same time, Russian rheumatologists primarily use GC to suppress inflammatory activity. The introduction of modern recommendations for the management of patients with RA into routine clinical practice, could possibly restrain the formation of D2T RA.