ArticleClinical rheumatology2021
Accessibility to biologics and its impact on disease activity and quality of life in patients with rheumatoid arthritis in Kuwait.
Article in Clinical rheumatology, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 12 papers.
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
12 citing papers in PubMed, 15 citations in OpenAlex.
- Real-World Effectiveness and Safety of Risankizumab in Psoriasis: A Comprehensive Analysis from the Saudi Arabia Psoriasis Registry (PSORSA).Dermatology and therapy · 2025Article
- Cognitive impairment and quality of life among patients with carotid artery stenosis in Jordan: a cross-sectional study.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Disease Activity in Rheumatoid Arthritis Patients Stratified by Hemoglobin Levels: A Multi-center Study.Oman medical journal · 2024Article
- Examining the Impact of the World Health Organization 2022 Guidelines on Evaluation of Biosimilars for Non-Local Comparators in Biosimilar Studies on Middle East and North Africa Member States.Pharmacy (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Review
- Consensus-Based Overarching Principles and Recommendations on the Use of Biosimilars in the Treatment of Inflammatory Arthritis in the Gulf Region.BioDrugs : clinical immunotherapeutics, biopharmaceuticals and gene therapy · 2024Article
- Machine learning-based remission prediction in rheumatoid arthritis patients treated with biologic disease-modifying anti-rheumatic drugs: findings from the Kuwait rheumatic disease registry.Frontiers in big data · 2024Article
- Photoacoustic image-guided biomimetic nanoparticles targeting rheumatoid arthritis.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2022Article
- Direct healthcare resource utilisation, health-related quality of life, and work productivity in patients with moderate rheumatoid arthritis: an observational study.BMC musculoskeletal disorders · 2021Observational
- A Review of the Prevalence and Unmet Needs in the Management of Rheumatoid Arthritis in Africa and the Middle East.Rheumatology and therapy · 2021Review
- Network analysis and transcriptome profiling in peripheral blood mononuclear cells of patients with rheumatoid arthritis.Experimental and therapeutic medicine · 2021Article
- Do Drug Accessibility and OOP Burden Affect Health-Related Quality of Life of Patients With Chronic Diseases? - EQ-5D-5L Evaluation Evidence From Five Districts in China.Frontiers in public health · 2021Article
- Recommendation for the Management of Spondyloarthritis Patients in Kuwait.Open access rheumatology : research and reviews · 2020Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
27 authors at 6 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
objectiveBiologics are indicated in rheumatoid arthritis (RA) in case of persistent high disease activity despite conventional disease-modifying anti-rheumatic drugs (cDMARDs) or patients with contraindications to cDMARDs or poor prognostic factors. The purpose of this study was to compare the prescription rates of biologics in Kuwaiti and non-Kuwaiti patients and to assess whether this had an impact on disease activity and quality of life in RA patients.
methodsData were extracted from the Kuwait Registry for Rheumatic Diseases. Adult patients who satisfied the ACR classification criteria for RA from four major hospitals in Kuwait were evaluated from February 2013 through May 2018. The treatment agents, disease activity, and quality of life of Kuwaiti patients were compared with non-Kuwaiti patients.
resultsA total of 1651 RA patients were included; 806 (48.8%) were Kuwaiti patients. Among Kuwaiti patients, 62.5% were on biologic drugs in comparison with 14% of non-Kuwaiti patients. In comparison with non-Kuwaiti patients, Kuwaiti patients had significantly lower numbers of swollen joints (p < 0.001) and disease activity score-28 scores (p = 0.02) and less steroid use (p < 0.001) yet a significantly higher health assessment questionnaire-disability index (p < 0.001). Regression analysis showed that DAS-28 scores were significantly associated with the treatment type (p < 0.001) and that nationality was significantly predictive of the treatment type (p < 0.001).
conclusionIn the setting of easy accessibility to treatment for Kuwaiti patients, biologics were prescribed by rheumatologists at a higher rate than for non-Kuwaitis. This may explain the lower disease activity and the lower rate of steroid use in Kuwaiti patients than non-Kuwaitis. KEY POINTS: • Significant discrepancies in the rates of prescribing biologic therapies between KP and NKP in Kuwait were observed. • Several treatment outcomes were significantly better in the KP group than in the NKP group even after adjustment of confounding factors. • The poor access to biologic therapies was suggested to limit the effectiveness of RA treatments in the NKP group.
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.