The plasma Tumor Necrosis Factor-α (TNF-α) does not have any correlation with disease activity in rheumatoid arthritis patients treated with disease modifying anti-rheumatic drugs (DMARDs)

Serum Tumor Necrosis Factor-Alpha as a Competent Biomarker for Evaluation of Disease Activity in Early Rheumatoid Arthritis

“…Patients with a low disease activity score had a significantly lower concentration of serum TNF-α than in the subgroups with moderate and high disease activity. Similar to our findings were the observations made by other studies conducted on newly diagnosed RA patients [ 5 , 7 , 19 ]. These findings show that TNF-α is expressed earlier in the pathologic events in DMARD naïve RA patients and can therefore be an important marker for the evaluation of disease activity.…”

“…Serum TNF-α was shown to have a positive correlation with DAS28 in our study participants. Previous studies also showed a positive correlation between plasma levels of TNF-α and activity of the disease in the newly diagnosed RA patients and not in patients who were on DMARD treatment [ 7 , 19 ]. Shrivastava et al and others reported that DAS28 scores showed a significant correlation with serum TNF-α in the high disease activity subgroup of RA patients [ 7 , 23 , 24 ].…”

“…Values of DAS28-ESR were defined: HDA (>5.10), MDA (3.21-5.10), LDA (2.61-3.20), or remission (<2.60) [19].…”

“…The DAS28 - including 28 tender (TJ28) and swollen joint (SJ28) count, and the ESR - was used to assess clinical disease activity by a DAS28-ESR calculator [ 18 ]. Values of DAS28-ESR were defined: HDA (>5.10), MDA (3.21-5.10), LDA (2.61-3.20), or remission (<2.60) [ 19 ].…”