Association Between Baseline Anti-cyclic Citrullinated Peptide Antibodies and 6-Month Clinical Response Following Abatacept or TNF Inhibitor Treatment: A Real-World Analysis of Biologic-Experienced Patients with RA.

Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is an autoimmune disease ­ a disease that causes the immune system to attack an individual's own body. A key feature of RA is the presence of proteins called autoantibodies in the blood. While antibodies help protect against external threats such as viruses, autoantibodies mistakenly target an individual's own tissues and organs. One type of autoantibody often found in patients with RA is called anti-cyclic citrullinated peptide (anti-CCP). Studies have shown that patients with RA with anti-CCP antibodies may experience worse physical symptoms, function, disease activity, and outcomes than patients with RA without anti-CCP antibodies. Clinical trials suggest that some drugs may be more effective than others at managing symptoms of RA in patients who have anti-CCP in their blood. It is important to study this further to give doctors a sense of how patients respond to drug therapy in the 'real world', without clinical trial constraints. This study examined real-world patient data to see whether the presence of anti-CCP in patients' blood impacted how their RA symptoms responded to treatment with two different drugs: abatacept or a tumor necrosis factor inhibitor (TNFi). This study found that patients with higher levels of anti-CCP at the start of the study, compared with patients with lower levels of anti-CCP, experienced less disease activity and greater improvement in physical function after 6 months of treatment with abatacept. The study found no relationship between anti-CCP and treatment response after 6 months of treatment with a TNFi.