Treating people who are at high risk of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) can delay the onset of the disease for several years, with benefits also continuing well after treatment has stopped.
The trial showed that one year of treatment with the drug abatacept, a biologic therapy that targets immune cell activation, reduced progression to rheumatoid arthritis in people at high risk.
The new King’s College London study, published in The Lancet Rheumatology, builds on results from a trial led reported by King’s researchers in 2024.
While the original trial followed 213 participants from the UK and the Netherlands for two years, the new study reports outcomes from an extended follow-up period of between four and eight years, making it one of the longest follow-up studies of its kind in people at risk of RA.
RA…