As Senior Medical Science Liaison in the Medical Affairs department at Crescendo Bioscience, I wear a lot of hats. One of the most exciting components of my job is attending medical meetings, where, in addition to presenting some of our latest data, I meet with international key opinion leaders and stay abreast of the science around RA. Recently I came back from the European League Against Rheumatism (EULAR) Annual Congress, which took place this year in Madrid, from June 14 – 17, with more than 16,000 people from 120 countries in attendance.
At this year’s meeting, Vectra was featured in seven presentations, including one oral presentation. The studies covered a range of topics, but two presentations had very practical implications about variations in a patient’s Vectra score:
- One study showed that a change of 7 points or less in patients with moderate or high Vectra scores might be due to natural variations in the body.[1]
- At the same time, another presentation found that a Vectra score that decreased by at least 8 points was associated with clinical improvement.[2]
For patients, this means that if your Vectra score decreases by 8 points or more, you are improving, but if your score increases by 8 points or more, you may want to talk with your doctor about potential reasons and whether any action is needed.
We also had a poster presentation that showed that Vectra could predict successful tapering for patients on TNF inhibitors.[3] Another oral presentation showed using Vectra and CCP as part of a tapering strategy was also cost-effective.[4]
Two studies presented to support the growing body of evidence that a patient’s Vectra score is valuable in predicting risk for joint damage. One showed consistent results across six studies. An analysis combining three of these studies also showed that Vectra was a better predictor of joint damage compared to other measures. [5] The second study confirmed that Vectra is useful for predicting joint damage even in patients who are in remission.[6]
These studies are important in reaffirming the value of Vectra as a tool to help determine whether patients’ medications can be tapered successfully and whether a patient might be at risk for joint damage.
Full abstracts of these and all EULAR presentations are available at this link. You can check out our press releases around the Vectra data presented at EULAR at this link and this one.
In my next post, I will share some of the exciting work we saw out of EULAR 2017!
[1] Chernoff, D. (2017, June). Daily and Diurnal Variation and Determination of the Minimally Important Difference in Rheumatoid Arthritis Patients with Moderate to High Multi-Biomarker Disease Activity Scores (MID). Poster session presented at the meeting of the European League Against Rheumatism (EULAR) Annual Congress, Madrid.
[2] Chatzidionysiou, K. (2017, June). Determining Minimum Clinically Important Change in Multi-Biomarker Disease Activity Score Associated with Clinical Improvement in Methotrexate Naïve Patients with Early Rheumatoid Arthritis (EIRA). Poster session presented at the meeting of the European League Against Rheumatism (EULAR) Annual Congress, Madrid.
[3] Rech, J. (2017, June). Elevated Multi-Biomarker Disease Activity (MBDA) Predicts Relapses In RA Patients In Sustained Remission Tapering Tumour Necrosis Factor Inhibitor Therapy- Results From The Randomized Controlled Retro Study. Poster session presented at the meeting of the European League Against Rheumatism (EULAR) Annual Congress, Madrid.
[4] Hagen, M. (2017, June). Multi-biomarker disease activity and autoantibody status lead to cost-effective tapering algorithms in rheumatoid arthritis patients in sustained remission. Poster session presented at the meeting of the European League Against Rheumatism (EULAR) Annual Congress, Madrid.
[5] Curtis, JR. (2017, June). High multi-biomarker disease activity score is associated with a high risk of radiographic progression in six studies. Poster session presented at the meeting of the European League Against Rheumatism (EULAR) Annual Congress, Madrid.
[6] Schett, G. (2017, June). Multi-biomarker disease activity (MBDA) is associated with the progression of structural bone damage in rheumatoid arthritis patients in remission. Poster session presented at the meeting of the European League Against Rheumatism (EULAR) Annual Congress, Madrid.
