Table 1.
Characteristics of patient backgrounds regarding age, duration of disease, body weight, volume of daily intake of prednisolone, C-reactive protein (CRP) levels, white blood cell counts, and reactive oxygen metabolite levels
| Control (OA) N = 15 | RA | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| DMARDs N = 91 | Anti-TNF N = 8 | Anti-IL-6 N = 26 | ||
| Age (years) | 68.1 ± 14.5 | 63.1 ± 12.1 | 58.8 ± 3.81 | 58.0 ± 8.0 |
| Duration of disease (years) | – | 12.6 ± 10.7 | 10.3 ± 4.5 | 13.0 ± 8.5 |
| Body weight (kg) | – | 51.4 ± 9.6 | 54.9 ± 7.9 | 52.8 ± 7.7 |
| Prednisolone (mg/day) | 0 | 2.9 ± 3.1 | 2.8 ± 3.2 | 2.0 ± 3.0 |
| CRP (mg/dl) | – | 1.12 ± 1.76 | 0.42 ± 0.37* | 0.03 ± 0.14** |
| WBC (counts) | – | 8,090 ± 2,914 | 7,746 ± 2,779 | 6,302 ± 2,866 |
| ROM (d-ROM: Carr U) | 375.5 ± 72.5* | 464.2 ± 112.3 | 377.1 ± 53.7* | 239.2 ± 73.7** |
There was no significant difference in disease duration, body weight, daily dose of prednisolone, and WBC counts in among the three groups of RA. CRP level was significantly lower in anti-IL-6 (TCZ) group than other two RA groups and that of anti-TNF group was significantly lower than DMARDs group but significantly higher than anti-IL-6 group
*, ** P < 0.05, significantly lower level of CRP level and d-ROM as compared with that in the DMARD group. Results are expressed as the mean ± SD. Between-group differences were assessed by one-way ANOVA test, and a probability <0.05 was considered to indicate statistical significance