[How do we evaluate an inadequate response in a patient with rheumaoid arthritis in the clinical praxis P?]

Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a chronic disease that particularly affects the joints, causing their destruction, changes in its functional capacity and considerably compromising the quality of life. It is known that early treatment can reduce structural damage and improve the disability in the long term, but the optimal therapeutic strategies are still not universally accepted. As with diabetes and hypertension, strict control of the disease is required, with the objective of achieving no disease activity, which may be seen as a remission, or if this is not possible, to keep the inflammatory activity as low as possible so that the unfavourable consequences, such as the articular damage process and the risks that the patients assume deriving from treatment, do not occur. The improvement criteria of the American College of Rheumatology (ACR) are useful for comparing the efficacy of treatment in clinical trials, but they must not be used as a therapeutic objective, since they do not evaluate the final activity, which can be as important as having an improvement. To evaluate the response, the most logical and convenient for the doctor is to use the same tools that are used to evaluate the activity of the disease in clinical practice, such as the DAS and SDAI activity scores. Some limits which separate the different levels of activity have been proposed to improve their interpretation and establish therapeutic objectives. The categorisation into classes according to activity is important for starting or changing treatment (when it is moderate or high) and to define stages of conceptually different activity (activity or remission). The cut-off points that separate these categories were proposed years ago when the therapeutic possibilities of RA were limited and their long term consequences were not known. The therapeutic objective of remission or lower activity is much easier to achieve these days, therefore the therapeutic categories need to be reconsidered and the definition of lower activity levels as a potential objective. Nowadays, to assume moderate or high activity as a result of treatment is unacceptable, particularly when our therapeutic arsenal is already considerable and strategies and therapeutic combinations have been proposed which have demonstrated higher efficacy with tolerable risks. Although changes happen gradually in all aspects of life, there is no reason not to accept remission of RA as not only a desirable objective, but also an achievable one.