Clinical and ultrasonographic evaluation of the window of opportunity for retreatment with rituximab in rheumatoid arthritis patients from a multicentre real-life study

To determine a potential window of opportunity for retreatment with rituximab in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) from a multicentre longitudinal real-life study based on tight monitoring with ultrasonography (US). Thirty RA patients treated with rituximab were included. US parameters were collected at each time (8 visits) of the 18-month follow-up, notably the global score of power Doppler (PD) activity. Clinical relapse was defined as a DAS28 ESR of >3.2 after 6 months in responders while US relapse was defined as an increase of ≥20% of the global score of PD activity. The decision of retreatment was based exclusively on clinical findings. A total of 29 patients were analysed (mean (SD) age: 57.2 (12.2) years; female gender: 66%). The mean (SD) PD score decreased from 8.8 (5.2) at baseline to 4.9 (4.3) at 6 months (p