Key clinical point: Patients with treatment-naive early rheumatoid arthritis (RA) had higher serum clusterin levels, which decreased significantly after the initiation of conventional therapy. Moreover, baseline clusterin levels predicted the achievement of low disease activity and remission during the first year.
Major finding: Patients with treatment-naive early RA vs. healthy controls (HCs) had significantly higher clusterin levels ( P less than .0001), which declined significantly after 3 months of therapy ( P less than .0001) and was comparable with that of HCs ( P = .865). Lower clusterin levels at baseline predicted achieving remission ( P = .018) and low disease activity ( P = .025) at 12 months.
Study details: The data come from an analysis of patients with treatment-naive early RA (n=52) who were age-/sex-matched with HCs (n=52).
Disclosures: This study received support from the Ministry of Health of the Czech Republic. No competing interest was reported.
Source: Kropáčková T et al. Sci Rep. 2021 Jun 1. doi: 10.1038/s41598-021-90973-2.