Genetic and clinical markers for predicting treatment responsiveness in rheumatoid arthritis

Abstract

Although many drugs and therapeutic strategies have been developed for rheumatoid arthritis (RA) treatment, numerous patients with RA fail to respond to currently available agents. In this review, we provide an overview of the complexity of this autoimmune disease by showing the rapidly increasing number of genes associated with RA. We then systematically review various factors that have a predictive value (predictors) for the response to different drugs in RA treatment, especially recent advances. These predictors include but are certainly not limited to genetic variations, clinical factors, and demographic factors. However, no clinical application is currently available. This review also describes the challenges in treating patients with RA and the need for personalized medicine. At the end of this review, we discuss possible strategies to enhance the prediction of drug responsiveness in patients with RA.

Keywords

rheumatoid arthritis / gene / clinical markers / therapy

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 31770988 and 31500716) and the National Basic Research Program (973 Program) of China (H. Xu, No. 2014CB541802).

Compliance with ethics guidelines

Xin Wu, Xiaobao Sheng, Rong Sheng, Hongjuan Lu, and Huji Xu declare that they have no financial conflicts of interest. This manuscript is a review article and does not involve a research protocol requiring approval by a relevant institutional review board or ethics committee.

Electronic Supplementary Material&chsp;Supplementary material is available in the online version of this article at https://doi.org/10.1007/s11684-018-0659-3 and is accessible for authorized users.

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