Maxime Verhoeven

174 Chapter 9 against sporadically missing data, imputation was deemed to have no additional value in this situation and was not performed. 12 RESULTS In total 64 RA patients were included, n=32 with early RA (DMARD-naïve, starting MTX and prednisone) and n=32 with established RA (starting with first or consecutive TNFi as additional therapy). All early RA patients were treated according to EULAR guidelines, and remained on MTX treatment during the study. Regarding established RA patients, 26 of 32 were bDMARD-naïve and started treatment with a first TNFi, whereas the others started a consecutive TNFi. More detailed information about medication use is shown in Supplementary Table S1. In early RA patients, no treatment failures during the 6 months follow up were observed, whereas 5 patients in the established RA cohort discontinued TNFi therapy due to insufficient effectiveness. Three of them switched after 3 months to another bDMARD. One of 32 established RA patients experienced an adverse event (not related to TNFi therapy), and stopped therapy. Table 1 provides an overview of the baseline characteristics and treatment response of all patients, and separately per cohort. Overall, similar outcomes were observed for early and established RA, except for SJC28 and number of alcohol users, both at baseline, and response to treatment during the study period, except for changes in HAQ, see Table 1. DAS28, OST-score, SJC, TJC, HAQ and EQ5D-5L values over time are shown in Figure 1. Table 1 Baseline characteristics and treatment response. All n= 64 Early n= 32 Established n= 32 p-value Baseline characteristics Female, n (%) 42 (66) 22 (69) 20 (63) 0.60 Age (years), mean (SD) 57.6 (11.6) 55.8 (12.2) 59.6 (10.8) 0.26 BMI (kg/m²), mean (SD) 26.4 (4.9) 25.7 (5.1) 27.2 (4.5) 0.18 Duration RA (years), median (IQR) n.a  n.a. 8 (2 – 13) n.a Smoker, n (%) 13 (22) 7 (22) 6 (23)** 0.91 Alcohol user (≥1 unit/week), n (%) 36 (56) 22 (69) 14 (44) 0.04* RF positivity, n (%) 48 (77) 23 (72) 25 (83) 0.51 Anti-CCP positivity, n (%) 50 (81) 29 (91) 21 (70) 0.11 DAS28, mean (SD) 4.4 (1.1) 4.5 (0.9) 4.3 (1.2) 0.39 SJC28, median (IQR) 4 (2 – 7) 6 (4 – 10) 3 (1 – 6) 0.01* TJC28, median (IQR) 5 (2 – 8) 4.5 (3 – 7) 6 (2 – 11) 0.35 VAS global, median (IQR) 55 (38 – 70) 61 (42 – 75) 51 (30 – 63) 0.27 OST-score, mean (SD) 15.6 (5.3) 16.8 (5.8) 14.4 (4.3) 0.10 HAQ score, median (IQR) 1.0 (0.6 – 1.4) 0.9 (0.5 – 1.4) 1.1 (1.0 – 1.7) 0.20