Long-term prognosis of rheumatoid arthritis disease: A multi centric retrospective cohort study

Rheumatoid arthritis is the most common chronic systemic inflammatory and autoimmune disease. Considering that one of the important goals of treatment of this disease is to achieve remission, this study was designed to identify the factors associated with the prognosis of this disease to select a treatment appropriate to its severity.

In this study, the records of 433 patients with rheumatoid arthritis were examined by several rheumatologists and their assistants in Tabriz and Kashan centers and the factors affecting the prognosis of patients using logistic regression test was determined.

Results showed that the variables of disease duration, DAS28 at the first visit, treatment regimen and TNF inhibitors have a significant effect on patients' prognosis (P <0.05) so that with an increase of one unit (year) duration of the disease, the chance of a poor prognosis in patients increases 1.117 times; The chance of a poor prognosis among patients in whom the disease activity was severe at the beginning of the referral is 2.369 times higher than in patients in whom the disease activity was moderate; Also, the chance of a poor prognosis among patients on a mono-therapy regimen is 9.346 times higher than in patients on a double-therapy regimen.

Increasing duration of the disease, severe disease activity at the beginning of the visit, lack of commitment to treatment and use of a mono-therapy regimen at the beginning of treatment increase the chance of poor prognosis in patients.