Pretreatment absolute monocyte counts are associated with biological disease-modifying anti-rheumatic drug non-response in patients with rheumatoid arthritis
Authors' conclusion
In the largest study to date, increasing absolute monocyte counts were associated with bDMARD non-response after 6 months of treatment, replicating previous reports.
Study context
- Population
- Patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) starting a biological disease-modifying anti-rheumatic drug (bDMARD), five centres of a UK-based prospective multicentre study
- Participants
- 246 patients
- Exposure
- Pretreatment full blood count (FBC) components and EULAR non-response to bDMARD
- Outcome
- EULAR non-response
- Follow-up
- 6 months
Methodological detailsmulticentre, backward stepwise logistic regression, out-of-bag bootstrapping (200 repeats)
- Multicentre
- Backward stepwise logistic regression
- Out-of-bag bootstrapping (200 repeats)
Main finding
As reported in the abstract
EULAR non-response, per pretreatment absolute monocyte count
Pretreatment absolute monocyte count (only predictive FBC component), aOR
9.56
95% CI 1.61–59.86p = 0.01
Area under the receiver operating characteristics (AUROC)
60.42%
Observational data: associations, not effects.
Further findings
Model fit (Akaike information criterion (AIC)): monocyte model vs covariates-only model
- AIC, model including monocytes vs covariates-only
- 184.36 vs 188.51
Original publication
Pretreatment absolute monocyte counts are associated with biological disease-modifying anti-rheumatic drug non-response in patients with rheumatoid arthritis. Scand J Rheumatol. Published 21 May 2025. doi:10.
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