Trial reportArthritis research & therapy2012
Low-dose oral prednisone improves clinical and ultrasonographic remission rates in early rheumatoid arthritis: results of a 12-month open-label randomised study.
Trial report in Arthritis research & therapy, 2012. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 33 papers, 4 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
33 citing papers in PubMed, 4 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 73 citations in OpenAlex.
- Pooled it
- The efficacy of systemic glucocorticosteroids for pain in rheumatoid arthritis: a systematic literature review and meta-analysis.Rheumatology (Oxford, England) · 2021Pooled it
- Pooled it
- Efficacy of conventional synthetic disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs, glucocorticoids and tofacitinib: a systematic literature review informing the 2013 update of the EULAR recommendations for management of rheumatoid arthritis.Annals of the rheumatic diseases · 2014Pooled it
- Discontinuation vs. continuation of concomitant methotrexate in patients with rheumatoid arthritis on certolizumab pegol: results from a randomised, controlled trial.Arthritis research & therapy · 2025Trial
- Optical spectral transmission to assess glucocorticoid therapy response in patients with arthritis: a longitudinal follow-up comparison with joint ultrasound.Arthritis research & therapy · 2023Trial
- Trial
- Article
- Diagnostic Value of Short Course Low-dose Prednisolone in Patients with Clinically Suspected Seronegative Inflammatory Arthritis - A Retrospective Study.Current rheumatology reviews · 2024Article
- Treating the Side Effects of Exogenous Glucocorticoids; Can We Separate the Good From the Bad?Endocrine reviews · 2023Review
- Concomitant prednisone may alleviate methotrexate side-effects in rheumatoid arthritis patients.BMC rheumatology · 2023Article
- Influence of initial glucocorticoid co-medication on mortality and hospitalization in early inflammatory arthritis: an investigation by record linkage of clinical and administrative databases.Arthritis research & therapy · 2022Article
- Perioperative Glucocorticoids in Patients With Rheumatoid Arthritis Having Total Joint Replacements: Help or Harm?ACR open rheumatology · 2021Article
- The efficacy of low dose short-term prednisone therapy for remission induction in newly diagnosed rheumatoid arthritis patients.Advances in rheumatology (London, England) · 2021Article
- Impact of Anti-Citrullinated Protein Antibodies on Progressive Systemic Bone Mineral Density Loss in Patients With Early Rheumatoid Arthritis After Two Years of Treat-to-Target.Frontiers in immunology · 2021Article
- Limiting factors to Boolean remission differ between autoantibody-positive and -negative patients in early rheumatoid arthritis.Therapeutic advances in musculoskeletal disease · 2021Article
- [Management of early rheumatoid arthritis : Interdisciplinary guideline].Zeitschrift fur Rheumatologie · 2020Review
- The agreement between ultrasound-determined joint inflammation and clinical signs in patients with rheumatoid arthritis.Arthritis research & therapy · 2019Article
- Clinical, Imaging, and Pathological Suppression of Synovitis in Rheumatoid Arthritis: Is the Disease Curable?Frontiers in medicine · 2018Review
- Anti-citrullinated protein antibodies and high levels of rheumatoid factor are associated with systemic bone loss in patients with early untreated rheumatoid arthritis.Arthritis research & therapy · 2016Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
introductionIn early rheumatoid arthritis (RA), low-dose oral prednisone (PDN) co-medication yields better clinical results than monotherapy with disease-modifying anti-rheumatic drugs (DMARDs). In addition, ultrasonography (US) evaluation reveals rapid and significant effects of glucocorticosteroids on subclinical synovitis. No data currently exist that examine the clinical and US results offered by glucocorticoid co-medication over DMARD monotherapy in early RA patients.
methodsTwo hundred and twenty patients with early RA (< 1 year from clinical onset) were treated according to a low disease activity (LDA) targeted step-up protocol including methotrexate (MTX) and, in the active treatment arm, low-dose (6.25 mg/day) oral PDN over 12 months. Clinical disease activity measures were collected at baseline, 2, 4, 6, 9 and 12 months, and US examination of hands was performed at baseline, 6 and 12 months. Grey-scale and power Doppler (PD) synovitis were scored (0 to 3) for each joint. At 12 months, clinical remission according to the disease activity score among 28 joints was defined as the clinical outcome, and a total joint PD score of 0 (PD negativity) as the imaging outcome.
resultsEach group included 110 patients with comparable demographic, clinical, laboratory and US characteristics. At 12 months, the LDA rate was similar in the two groups, whilst the clinical remission rate (risk ratio = 1.61 (95% confidence interval = 1.08, 2.04)) and PD negativity rate (risk ratio = 1.31 (95% confidence interval = 1.04, 1.64)) were significantly higher in the MTX+PDN group.
conclusionIn early RA, despite a similar response rate in terms of LDA, low-dose oral PDN co-medication led to a higher proportion of clinical remission and PD negativity compared with MTX monotherapy, thus ensuring a better disease activity control. TRIAL REGISTRATION NUMBER: Current Controlled Trials ISRCTN2486111.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.