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Disease-modifying anti-rheumatic drugs (DMARD) have the greatest effect when initiated early. We evaluated the influence of early exposure to DMARD on time to joint replacement surgery among patients with incident rheumatoid arthritis (RA).
Rheumatoid
arthritis (RA) is a chronic progressive disease causing inflammation in the
joints and resulting in painful deformity and immobility in the fingers,
wrists, feet, and ankles. This study predicted that the early detection and
diagnosis of RA will further prevent the surgery in the later stages of this
diseases. The Disease-modifying anti-rheumatic drugs (DMARD) have been analyzed
here.
Disease-modifying
anti-rheumatic drugs (DMARD) have the greatest effect when initiated early. We
evaluated the influence of early exposure to DMARD on time to joint replacement
surgery among patients with incident rheumatoid arthritis (RA).
Using a common
protocol, we undertook 2 independent population-based cohort studies of
patients with incident RA aged 66 years or older in Ontario (ON) and Quebec
(QC) covering the period 2000–2013. We used Cox proportional hazards regression
with time-dependent variables measuring duration of drug use in the first year,
separately for methotrexate (MTX) and other DMARD, adjusting for baseline
demographics, clinical factors, and other potentially confounding drug
exposures. Our outcome measure was any joint replacement derived from
standardized procedure codes. Adjusted HR and 95% CI were estimated.
Among 20,918 ON
and 6754 QC patients with RA followed for a median of 4.5 years, 2201 and 494
patients underwent joint replacement surgery for crude event rates of 2.0 and
1.4 per 100 person-years, respectively. Greater cumulative exposure to MTX (HR
0.97, 95% CI 0.95–0.98) and other DMARD (HR 0.98, 95% CI 0.97–0.99) in the
first year after diagnosis was associated with longer times to joint
replacement in ON, corresponding to a 2–3% decrease in the hazard of surgery
with each additional month of early use. Similar results were observed in QC.
Greater duration
of exposure to DMARD soon after RA diagnosis was associated with delays to
joint replacement surgery in both provinces. Early intensive treatment of RA
may ultimately reduce demand for joint replacement surgery.
J Rheumatol. 2016 May;43(5):861-8
The Longterm Effect of Early Intensive Treatment of Seniors with Rheumatoid Arthritis: A Comparison of 2 Population-based Cohort Studies on Time to Joint Replacement Surgery
Jessica Widdifield et al.
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