Table 1.
Baseline characteristics of the patients with early and established RA enrolled in this study*.
Table 2.
Time-course changes in biochemical, clinical, radiographic, and functional measures during 1-year infliximab therapy.
Figure 1.
Temporal course of cartilage biomarker levels during 54-week infliximab therapy.
Data for each time point represent mean levels of serum CRP, HA, COMP, KS, and C2C/CPII in early RA (A) and established RA (B). Standard deviation (SD) error bars are not plotted in these graphs for clarity and are shown in Table 3. Statistical analyses were performed using Wilcoxon's matched-pairs signed-ranks test, two-tailed. *p<0.05 versus level at baseline. **p<0.001 versus level at baseline.
Table 3.
Time-course changes in the levels of cartilage biomarkers during 1-year infliximab therapy.
Table 4.
Spearman's correlation coefficients and partial correlation coefficients of cartilage markers vesus RA disease markers.
Figure 2.
Improvement of C2C/CPII from baseline to week 54 was assessed in early RA (A), established RA (B), and all patients (C).
Data are expressed as mean (± SD) percentage of baseline. Patients were divided into three subgroups according to the degree of clinical response at week 54 using EULAR response criteria. Positive values signify that the balance of CII synthesis/degradation is biased toward synthesis, while negative values indicate that the balance is biased toward degradation. Statistical analysis was performed using the Kruskal-Wallis test. *p<0.05.