Tight control in patients with rheumatoid arthritis treated with targeted therapies across the COVID-19 pandemic era

Abstract

Objectives To analyze the impact of different patterns of healthcare delivery on remission of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients treated with targeted therapies during the first wave (2020) and second/third waves (2021) of the pandemic compared to the pre-pandemic period (2019). Methods In this observational real-life study, data from RA patients treated with biologic or targeted synthetic drugs were extracted from a longitudinal registry. Clinical Disease Activity Index (CDAI) was analyzed in the same period from the 22nd of February to the 18th of May for three consecutive years. These three periods were characterized by different patterns of healthcare delivery: (1) before the pandemic (2019) only in-person visits, (2) during the first wave (2020) both in-person visits and telehealth, and (3) during the second/third waves (2021) only in-person visits. A generalized linear model with the binomial error was fitted to evaluate the difference in the proportion of patients in CDAI remission. Quantile regression was used to compare the median of CDAI in difficult-to-treat (D2T) patients. Results In the three periods, we included 407, 450, and 540 RA patients respectively. The percentages of patients in CDAI remission were similar in the three periods (prevalence ratio 1.07, p value 0.423 between 2020 and 2019, and 1.01, p-value 0.934 between 2021 and 2019). The CDAI remission rate was 40.55% ( N = 163), 43.18% ( N = 155) and 40.82% ( N = 220) in 2019, 2020 and 2021, respectively. Among our cohort of D2T patients, CDAI remission was similar across the three periods ( N = 30, 22.22%; N = 27, 23.68%; and N = 34, 21.52% respectively). Conclusion Although the pandemic has imposed changes in our healthcare delivery, these different strategies seem to be effective in ensuring satisfactory management of RA treated with targeted therapies. The approaches modulated in the context of the different periods have been a feasible compensation for ensuring disease control even in D2T patients.