Table 3.

Rheumatoid Arthritis Characteristics Compared with Other Chronic Conditions in Which Treat to Target is Accepted Paradigm

	Rheumatoid arthritis	Other chronic conditions (diabetes, hypertension, hyperlipidemia)
SIMILARITIES
1. Chronic disease	Almost always	Almost always
2. Outcome measures	Continuous scales, e.g., DAS, CDAI, RAPID	Continuous blood measures, e.g., blood glucose, blood pressure, lipid panel
3. Treatment benefits	Effective but disease flares common	Effective but often requires changes in therapy
4. Combination therapy	Very frequent	Frequent for diabetes and hypertension
DIFFERENCES
1. Disease course	Symptomatic with “flares”	Often without symptoms; “flares” are not common
2. Treatment safety	Relatively safe; requires substantial monitoring	Generally safe; little monitoring for most medications except subcutaneous insulin, which requires daily monitoring
3. Evidence for tight control	Relatively weak evidence for long-term benefits	Strong evidence for long-term benefits, some evidence of risks