Influence of HLA class II antigens and rheumatoid factor on the joint damage progression score per year among patients with recent onset RA treated according to different strategies (Leiden EAC study)
| Delayed treatment group | Early treatment group | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| No of patients | Change 0–2 years | Change 0–4 years | No of patients | Change 0–2 years | Change 0–4 years | |
| Values are the median (25th–75th centile). | ||||||
| *p<0.05 versus those in the same treatment group who were negative for the feature; †p not significant versus those in the same treatment group who were negative for the feature; ‡p = 0.041 versus those in the same treatment group who were negative for the feature. | ||||||
| Shared epitope | ||||||
| Positive | 52 | 7.0 (2.2, 17.0)* | 3.1 (0.8, 7.7)* | 45 | 1.0 (0, 7.4)† | 2.2 (0.3, 5.6)‡ |
| Negative | 24 | 0.5 (0, 5.8) | 0.8 (0, 3.4) | 26 | 0.9 (0, 3.0) | 0.5 (0, 1.9) |
| Rheumatoid factor | ||||||
| Positive | 48 | 6.7 (2.5, 18.2)* | 3.4 (1.4, 9.4)* | 44 | 2.0 (0, 13.2)* | 2.5 (0.8, 5.8)* |
| Negative | 30 | 1.7 (0, 7.6) | 0.7 (0, 2.8) | 30 | 0.5 (0, 2.0) | 0.3 (0, 1.3) |