Role of disease activity indexes in assessment of early efficacy of rheumatoid arthritis patients with infliximab treatment

Objective To explore the role of disease activity indexes (DAS)in assessment of early efficacy of rheumatoid arthritis (RA)patients with infliximab (IFX)treatment.Methods 14 patients with moderate and severe activity RA were firstly treated with an intravenous infusion of 200 mg IFX.The levels of the swollen joint count (SJC),tender joint count (TJC),C-reactive protein (CRP),erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR),DAS28-CRP,the health assessment questionnaire (HAQ)and rheumatoid factor (RF)were evaluated at 0 hour (baseline),3,6,24 hours after infu-sion and 3,7 and 14 days after IFX infusion.Results SJC,TJC,CRP,ESR,DAS28-CRP,HAQ and RF improved significantly on 14th day,in which TJC reduced 3 days after treatment,SJC and HAQ improved 7 days after treatment,CRP and DAS28-CRP started to decrease 6 hours immediately after IFX infusion.CRP level was the lowest on third day,and then gradually recovered 7 days after treatment,and remained below the baseline level on 14th day.Conclusion As the most sensitive in-dexes reflecting the early efficacy of IFX for RA,both CRP and DAS28-CRP can be used as the pre-dictive factors for IFX early efficacy.