A recent study published in Journal Rheumatology recommended the use of methotrexate (MTX) as an initial treatment strategy despite autoantibody status. Before this analysis, the connection of autoantibody status with treatment response to MTX was unpredictable. This study used real-world data to assess this relationship.

An international observational database, METEOR was used to choose patients who initially administered with MTX. A total of 1826 patients were classified into autoantibody negative and autoantibody-positive groups. Further, Cox-proportional hazards regression was used to evaluate the impact of autoantibody status on the probability of obtaining remission within 3 to 6 months.

A total of 318 patients obtained the DAS remission; 18% from the negative group and 17% from the positive group. This reflected no association of remission with autoantibody positivity. Also, no association was seen between autoantibody-positivity and HAQ < 0.5. Comparable verdicts were observed when stratified for MTX monotherapy or combination therapy. Further, 530 out of 1590 patients attained good physical function.  All these findings showed no link between early remission in newly diagnosed RA-patients receiving MTX and autoantibody status, which indicates MTX as an efficacious treatment approach for rheumatoid arthritis treatment.