THU0044 Efficacy of Treat-To-Target Biologic Therapy in Patients with Rheumatoid Arthritis Compared To Delayed Initiation of Biologics: A Real World Study

BackgroundRheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a chronic, devastating disease with involvement of small and large joints. Treat-to-target strategy aims to improve the outcome of patients with RA and rapidly reduce disease activity by using properly and aggressively all the therapeutic options1.ObjectivesTo estimate the efficacy of the first bDMARD, overall and by specific bDMARD, in RA patients, when administered according to international recommendations2, compared to delayed initiation of bDMARDs (usual care) in an outpatient clinic.MethodsDisease activity was regularly measured by DAS-28 until the end of treatment with the first bDMARD. Good response to treatment was considered when remission or low disease activity was achieved. Cox proportional-hazards analyses and Kaplan-Meier (KM) plots were performed to assess the likelihood (hazard ratio, HR) of achieving a good response.ResultsThere were 113 patients in T2T and 250 patients in usual care group (study-sample characteristics, Table 1). Efficacy of treatment was measured at 3, 12, 24, 36 months and at the end of treatment (Table 2), with significant advantage of the T2T group (p