Key clinical point: High resistin levels predict radiologically more rapidly progressing disease in patients with early active rheumatoid arthritis (RA) despite treatment with intensified disease-modifying antirheumatic drug (DMARD) combination. Adding infliximab delayed radiological progression in these patients.
Major finding: Plasma resistin levels at baseline showed positive linearity with disease activity score based on 28-joint count ( P = .0072). The addition of infliximab to the DMARD combination delayed radiological progression, with no difference observed between resistin tertiles at 5 years ( P = .73).
Study details: This was a post hoc analysis of the NEO-RACo trial , which enrolled 99 patients with early RA treated with intensified FIN-RACo regimen (methotrexate, sulfasalazine, hydroxychloroquine, and prednisolone). Subsequently, patients were randomly assigned to receive placebo or infliximab infusions added to the combination for 6 months.
Disclosures: The Scandinavian Rheumatology Research Foundation, the Maire Lisko Foundation, the Tampere University Hospital's Competitive Research, and others funded this study. None of the authors disclosed any potential conflict of interests.
Source: Vuolteenaho K et al. Scand J Rheumatol. 2021 Jul 15. doi: 10.1080/03009742.2021.1929456 .