Table 1 Demographic, diagnoses, disease characteristics, and treatment at inclusion in the study, in treatment groups and controls
Rituximab | Abatacept | cDMARD1 | Controls | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
N | 30 | 23 | 27 | 28 |
Female gender, % | 53% | 83% | 74% | 64% |
Age, median (range) years | 69 (31–88)2 | 64 (42–78)2 | 68 (25–87)2 | 55 (18–84) |
Rheumatoid arthritis, n (%) | 27 (90%) | 23 (100%) | 14 (52%) | 0 |
RF-positive (% of RA patients) | 100% | 79% | 90% | – |
Anti-CCP-positive (% of RA patients) | 92% | 68% | 80% | – |
Granulomatosis with polyangiitis, n (%) | 3 (10%) | 0 | 7 (26%) | 0 |
Eosinophilic granulomatosis with polyangiitis, n (%) | 0 | 0 | 3 (11%) | 0 |
Other systemic vasculitis, n (%) | 0 | 0 | 3 (11%) | 0 |
Disease duration, median (range) years | 20 (2–57) | 15 (4–45) | 5 (2–46) | – |
DAS28 in RA patients, median (range) | 2.7 (0.5–6.5)3 | 3.2 (1.5–5.5) | 2.3 (1.6–4.3) | – |
CRP, median mg/L | 3.0 | 2.3 | 3.1 | 0.7 |
Total IgG, median (range) g/L | 7.4 (4.0–13.9) | – | – | – |
RTX duration, median (range) years | 6.3 (0.7–10.9) | – | – | – |
ABT duration, median (range) years | – | 3.7 (0.7–10.2) | – | – |
cDMARD duration, median (range) years | 12.9 (3.3–22.4) | 10.3 (4.2–20.3) | 3.5 (1.4–15.3) | – |
MTX, n (%) | 16 (53%) | 11 (48%) | 19 (70%) | 0 |
MTX mg/week, median | 15 | 20 | 20 | 0 |
Azathioprine, n (%) | 1 (3%) | 0 | 5 (19%) | 0 |
Azathioprine mg/day, median | 150 | 0 | 100 | 0 |
Mycophenolate mofetil, n (%) | 0 | 0 | 3 (11%) | 0 |
Mycophenolate mofetil mg/day, median | 0 | 0 | 1500 | 0 |
Prednisolone, n (%) | 10 (33%) | 10 (43%) | 15 (56%) | 0 |
Prednisolone mg/day, median (range) | 5 (2.5–15) | 5.6 (2.5–20) | 5 (2.5–15) | 0 |
Previous treatment with TNFα-inhibitor (%) | 72.4 | 80.0 | 11.14 | 0 |