Patient burden and joint-inflammation during development of RA from arthralgia : is it similar in ACPA-positive and ACPA-negative disease?

© The Author(s) 2024. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the British Society for Rheumatology..

OBJECTIVES: Anti-citrullinated protein antibody(ACPA)-positive and ACPA-negative rheumatoid arthritis(RA) differ in underlying risk factors but have a similar clinical presentation at RA-diagnosis. It is unknown what the ACPA-associated differences or similarities are during the symptomatic at-risk stage of RA, clinically suspect arthralgia(CSA). To deepen insights into these differences/similarities, we compared the course of symptoms/impairments and subclinical joint-inflammation in the CSA-phase during progression to inflammatory arthritis(IA) or to CSA-resolution.

METHODS: 845 CSA-patients were followed for median 24 months; 136 patients developed IA and additional 355/505 patients had resolution of CSA according to rheumatologists. Patient burden (pain/morning stiffness/fatigue/functional disabilities/presenteeism) was assessed at baseline, 4/12/24 months and IA-development. Subclinical joint-inflammation in hands/feet was assessed over time with 1.5 T-MRI. Linear/Poisson mixed models were used.

RESULTS: Both in ACPA-positive and ACPA-negative patients, patient burden increased towards IA-development and decreased towards CSA-resolution. However, patient burden was lower in ACPA-positive than ACPA-negative disease on all timepoints. Conversely, subclinical joint-inflammation tended to increase more rapidly during development of ACPA-positive IA (IRR = 1.52,95%CI = 0.94-2.47, p= 0.089), and remained higher over time in ACPA-positive CSA-patients achieving resolution compared with ACPA-negative patients (IRR = 1.52,95%CI = 1.07-2.15, p= 0.018). Although correlation coefficients between changes in patient burden and subclinical joint-inflammation during progression to IA were weak, they were consistently higher in ACPA-positive than ACPA-negative disease, e.g. ρ = 0.29 vs ρ = 0.12 for functional disabilities.

CONCLUSION: During RA-development and CSA-resolution, ACPA-positive CSA-patients have lower patient burden, but more subclinical joint-inflammation than ACPA-negative CSA-patients. These data strengthen the notion that the development of ACPA-positive and ACPA-negative RA is pathophysiologically different, and encourage further research on these differences.

Medienart:

E-Artikel

Erscheinungsjahr:

2024

Erschienen:

2024

Enthalten in:

Zur Gesamtaufnahme - year:2024

Enthalten in:

Rheumatology (Oxford, England) - (2024) vom: 23. Jan.

Sprache:

Englisch

Beteiligte Personen:

Khidir, Sarah J H [VerfasserIn]
Krijbolder, Doortje I [VerfasserIn]
Glas, Herman K [VerfasserIn]
van Mulligen, Elise [VerfasserIn]
van der Helm-van Mil, Annette H M [VerfasserIn]

Links:

Volltext

Themen:

Anti-citrullinated protein antibody
Clinically suspect arthralgia
Joint-inflammation
Journal Article
Patient burden
Rheumatoid arthritis

Anmerkungen:

Date Revised 27.04.2024

published: Print-Electronic

Citation Status Publisher

doi:

10.1093/rheumatology/keae044

funding:

Förderinstitution / Projekttitel:

PPN (Katalog-ID):

NLM367521148