Why carry out this study?

Treatment discontinuation is common among patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA).

The analysis characterized patients with RA receiving baricitinib (cohort A) versus another targeted synthetic (ts) or any biological (b) disease-modifying antirheumatic drug (DMARD; cohort B) for the first time, and determined time until treatment discontinuation and the effectiveness of baricitinib and any other tsDMARD or any bDMARD in real-world settings in Europe.

What was learned from this study?

Patients with RA initiating treatment with baricitinib were older and had a longer disease duration than those initiating treatment with any other tsDMARD or any bDMARD.

Initial (6-month) descriptive data on treatment discontinuation revealed cumulative incidences (95% CI) of discontinuation of 16.5% (12.9–21.1) for cohort A and 23.3% (19.1–28.2) for cohort B; the main reason for discontinuation was primary nonresponse (3.3% of cohort A and 5.8% of cohort B).

Clinical Disease Activity Index showed a mean (standard deviation) change from baseline to 6 months of −13.9 (12.5) for cohort A and −11.8 (13.2) for cohort B, with 25.6% and 18.5% of each cohort, respectively, achieving remission at 6 months.

Over 6 months of observation, baricitinib proved to be an effective and long-lasting treatment choice for patients with RA initiating a ts/bDMARD for the first time in their treatment algorithm in real-world settings; more data will be generated with the observation of these patients up to 3 years, as per the study design.