Evidence of the symptomatic and structural efficacy of methotrexate in daily practice as the first disease-modifying drug in rheumatoid arthritis despite its suboptimal use: results from the ESPOIR early synovitis cohort.

OBJECTIVE

To describe the use of MTX in early arthritis (EA) in daily clinical practice and to evaluate its 6-month symptomatic efficacy and 12-month structural efficacy.

METHODS

Patients included in the French observational ESPOIR cohort were assessed. Evaluation of the symptomatic and structural efficacy was performed by generalized linear regression after adjustment on propensity score (PS) in the group of patients receiving at least 3 months of MTX vs the ones receiving any other treatment except LEF, SSZ or TNF inhibitors.

RESULTS

Within the first 6 months of follow-up of 777 EA patients, 59% received a DMARD, which was MTX in 68% (N = 313) of patients. The mean dose of MTX was 12.7 ± 3.8 mg/week. Only 53.7% of the patients received folic acid supplementation. MTX was initiated in patients with more active and severe disease. At 6 months, in unadjusted analysis, patients starting MTX had a significantly higher DAS-28 (3.58 vs 3.23; P = 0.001) and a significantly higher HAQ (0.60 vs. 0.48; P = 0.01) compared with controls. After adjustment by PS, there were no significant differences. Adjustment for the PS also revealed a statistically significant decrease in the radiological progression at 12 months in the MTX group [total Sharp-van der Heijde score (SHS), 1.05 ± 0.29 vs 2.02 ± 0.29, P = 0.025].

CONCLUSION

This study confirms the symptomatic and structural efficacy of MTX in EA in daily practice despite the non-optimal use of MTX, including low doses and infrequent concomitant folic acid supplementation.