Setting Treatment Goals in RA: Remission, Joint Damage, and Systemic Risk

In 'Setting Treatment Goals in RA: Remission, Joint Damage, and Systemic Risk,' the expert rheumatologist Dr. Julia Buchfuhrer examined the following critical questions:

How do you define treatment success in rheumatoid arthritis (RA), and when do you decide a patient hasn't responded well enough to their current therapy?

If we can get RA patients to low disease activity or remission and keep them there, what does that mean for long-term outcomes, such as joint damage, function, quality of life?

Dr. Buchfuhrer discussed defining remission, rather than low disease activity, as the treatment target for RA, describing it as the point where a patient no longer needs to consciously check in with their joints day to day.

Throughout the conversation, the experts provided a comprehensive reflection on the field and the factors that may shape how clinicians approach care moving forward.

Our next episode, 'Avoiding TNF Cycling: When to Switch Drug Classes in Rheumatoid Arthritis,' Dr. Buchfuhrer further explores rheumatoid arthritis, highlighting the risks of cycling through multiple tumor necrosis factor (TNF) inhibitors without meaningful improvement and the importance of weighing persistency data when selecting a biologic.