Disease activity and treatment response in early rheumatoid arthritis: an exploratory metabolomic profiling in the NORD-STAR cohort
An erratum to this article was published (Arthritis Res Ther, 25 Sep 2025 ↗)
Authors' conclusion
Our study has identified several baseline metabolites and metabolic pathways associated with disease activity and response to different treatments in early RA.
Study context
- Population
- Early rheumatoid arthritis (RA) participants from the NORD-STAR study; serum at baseline and 24 weeks
- Participants
- 220 participants
- Comparison
- MTX + prednisolone vs Certolizumab vs Abatacept vs Tocilizumab
- Primary endpoint
- Serum metabolic alterations associated with disease activity and therapeutic response (CDAI remission at 24 weeks = responders)
- Follow-up
- 24 weeks
Methodological detailshypothesis-free, untargeted metabolomics, machine learning prediction models
- Hypothesis-free
- Untargeted metabolomics
- Machine learning prediction models
Primary result
As reported in the abstract
- Metabolites identified
- 278
- Metabolites associated with baseline disease activity (incl. acylcarnitines, amino acids)
- 39
- Baseline metabolites associated with remission at 24 weeks, overall cohort
- 17
- Malic acid β
- −0.4
- Cytidine β
- 0.4
- Arginine β
- 0.3
- Citrulline β
- 0.2
- Features selected by machine learning multivariable selection
- 15
- Best model (logistic regression) AUC, training set
- 0.75
- Best model (logistic regression) AUC, test set
- 0.73
Further findings
Remission in the four treatment arms · 24 weeks
- Specific metabolites and metabolic pathways associated with remission in the four treatment arms
Original publication
Disease activity and treatment response in early rheumatoid arthritis: an exploratory metabolomic profiling in the NORD-STAR cohort. Arthritis Res Ther. Published 26 July 2025. doi:10.
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