Table 2.

Key features of patient demographics and baseline data for selected studies

csDMARD-IR
Patient demographics
Age	Mean ages were similar between all studies (and study arms) ranging from 46.7 years35 to 57.3 years36–38
Sex	In all trials except ATTEST, the majority of patients were female
Ethnicity	In those trials reporting ethnicity, the majority of the patients were Caucasian, although in seven trials, the entire population was Asian35 39–45
Patient baseline clinical status
Weight	Mean weight ranged from 52.9 kg (J-RAPID) to 82 kg (MEASURE)
Proportion rheumatoid factor positive	The proportion of patients who were rheumatoid factor positive was above 60% in all studies reporting this value, except for the ASSET trial (55.6% for abatacept intravenous 8 mg/kg q4w+methotrexate)
Disease duration	Mean disease duration ranged widely, from 6 months (SWEFOT) to 13.1 years (ARMADA)
Tender joint count	Mean tender joint count ranged from 3 (ENCOURAGE) to 35 (DANCER) on the 68-count scale
Swollen joint count	Mean swollen joint count ranged from 3.2 (CERTAIN) to 24.0 (ATTRACT) on the 66-count scale
Prior DMARD use	Prior DMARD use ranged from 1.1 (STAR) to 3.1 (ARMADA) in 26 studies that reported prior DMARD use

TNFi-IR
Patient demographics
Age	Mean ages were similar across the patient populations, ranging from 50.94 years (RADIATE) to 58.2 years (ORAL Step)
Sex	The majority of patients were female
Ethnicity	In those trials reporting ethnicity, the majority of the patients were Caucasian
Patient baseline clinical status
Weight	Two studies reported mean weight from 78.2 kg (ATTAIN) to 79.4 kg (TARGET)
Proportion rheumatoid factor positive	The proportion of patients who were rheumatoid factor positive varied from 51% (Manders 2014) to 79% (TARGET, RADIATE and REFLEX)
Disease duration	Mean disease duration ranged from 5.6 years (Manders 2014) to 14.0 years46 (RA-BEACON)
Tender joint count	Mean tender joint count ranged from 27.6 (ORAL step) to 33.9 (REFLEX)
Swollen joint count	Mean swollen joint count ranged from 6 (RA-BEACON) to 23.4 (REFLEX)
Prior DMARD use	In the two studies (REFLEX and RADIATE) reporting prior csDMARD use, the use varied from 1.9 (RADIATE) to 2.6 (REFLEX)
Baseline disease severity	Mean DAS28 differed between the studies. For the csDMARD or methotrexate arms, the mean baseline DAS28-CRP ranged from 5.4 (ORAL Step) to 6.9 (REFLEX); the DAS28-ESR from 4.7 (Manders et al 2015) to 6.5 (ORAL Step) and the DAS28-unspecified from 6.5 (ATTAIN) to 6.8 (RADIATE)

CRP, C reactive protein; csDMARD, conventional disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs;DAS-28, Disease Activity Score 28-joint count; ESR, erythrocyte sedimentation rate; IR, inadequate response; TNF, tumour necrosis factor inhibitor.