Ten-year radiographic and functional outcomes in rheumatoid arthritis patients in remission compared to patients in low disease activity.

Background: To compare the 10-year structural and functional prognosis between patients in sustained remission versus patients in sustained low disease activity (LDA) in early rheumatoid arthritis (RA).

Methods: We included 256 patients from the ESPOIR cohort who fulfilled the 2010 ACR/EULAR criteria for RA and who were in sustained remission using the Simple Disease Activity Index (SDAI) score (n = 48), in sustained LDA (n = 139) or in sustained moderate to high disease activity (MDA or HDA, n = 69) over 10 years. The mTSSs progression over 10 years and the 10-year HAQ-DI scores were compared between the 3 groups.