Table 1.
Characteristics of subjects.
Table 2.
Comparison of clinical characteristics between the DAS and US remission groups and the non-remission groups at baseline.
Table 3.
Comparison of clinical characteristics between the DAS and US remission groups and the non-remission groups at 12 weeks.
Fig 1.
Comparison of the MMP-3 ratio between the DAS and US remission groups and the non-remission groups.
MMP-3 ratio, ratio of the serum matrix metalloproteinase 3 levels at baseline to those at 12 weeks; DAS remission, disease activity score in 28 joints <2.6; US remission, total power Doppler ultrasound score <3.
Fig 2.
Receiver operating characteristic curves of the MMP-3 ratio for achievement of DAS and US remission at 24 weeks after addition of iguratimod.
A: DAS remission, B: US remission. MMP-3 ratio, the ratio of the serum matrix metalloproteinase 3 levels at baseline to those at 12 weeks; DAS remission, disease activity score in 28 joints <2.6; US remission, total power Doppler ultrasound score <3.
Table 4.
Cutoff values of the serum MMP-3 levels at 12 weeks for the US remission and the MMP-3 ratio for the DAS and US remission.
Fig 3.
Comparison of the serum MMP-3 levels at 12 weeks and the MMP-3 ratio between steroids using and non-using groups (A). Correlation between the serum MMP-3 levels at 12 weeks / the MMP-3 ratio and dosage of steroids (B). MMP-3 ratio, ratio of the serum matrix metalloproteinase 3 levels at baseline to those at 12 weeks; PSL, prednisolone.