Researchers Can Predict Whether Rheumatoid Arthritis Patients Will Respond to Treatment

A new study conducted by researchers at the Queen Mary University of London has produced innovative biomarkers that can be used to predict patient responsiveness to DMARDs (disease-modifying anti-rheumatic drugs). Rheumatoid arthritis is an inflammatory disorder that can affect not only one’s joints but also blood vessels, heart, lungs, eyes and skin. The disease causes painful swelling that results in joint deformity and bone erosion.

Patients with rheumatoid arthritis are usually treated using disease-modifying anti-rheumatic drugs. This is despite the fact that almost 50% of rheumatoid arthritis patients are unresponsive to DMARD treatment. Up until now, no method was available to determine if an individual would respond to the treatment effectively.

This new study, published in “Nature Communications,” a science journal, showed that predictions about a patient’s ability to respond to these anti-rheumatic drugs could be made by measuring the levels of specific tiny molecules produced by essential fatty acids in an individuals’ blood. These essential fatty acids usually regulate inflammation and are called specialized pro-resolving mediators.

Professor Jesmond Dalli, the study’s lead author, is from Queen Mary University of London. He has stated that a majority of patients who suffered from rheumatoid arthritis were unresponsive to these anti-rheumatic drugs and were therefore exposed to the drugs’ side effects unnecessarily. Additionally, it takes an average of about six months from initiation of treatment to find out if a patient will or will not respond to these drugs. The disease worsens for patients who do not respond to these drugs before they are able to get a treatment that may work for them.

Dalli explained that the study was carried out using blood samples from healthy rheumatoid arthritis patients who were either unresponsive or responsive to treatment. The samples were collected six months after DMARD treatment began or before initiation of treatment was started. The researchers then used mass spectrometry-based techniques simultaneously with artificial intelligence methods to measure protective molecule levels and also identify molecules that can forecast responses to treatment.

The study recommends that the blood levels of the mediator group, which have been determined in the paper, should be measured. Measuring those blood levers will help forecast the responsiveness of rheumatoid arthritis patients to the disease-modifying anti-rheumatic drug treatment. The team of researchers plans to carry out a larger study to assess their initial findings and find out whether those findings can be applied to a larger patient group.

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