Background: We found recently that baseline signal transducer and activator of transcription 3 phosphorylation in\nperipheral blood CD4+ T cells of patients with early rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is associated with treatment response\nto synthetic disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs (DMARDs). This prompted us to study the baseline\nphosphorylation profiles of Janus kinases (JAKs) in blood leukocytes with respect to treatment response in early RA.\nMethods: Thirty-five DMARD-na�¯ve patients with early RA provided blood samples for whole blood flow cytometric\ndetermination of phosphorylation of JAKs in CD4+ and CD8+ T cells, CD19+ B cells, and CD14+ monocytes.\nTreatment response was determined after 1 year of treatment with synthetic DMARDs, with remission defined as\nabsence of tender and swollen joints and normal erythrocyte sedimentation rate. Exact logistic regression was used\nto investigate the association of baseline variables with treatment response. Ninety-five percent CIs of means were\nestimated by bias-corrected bootstrapping.\nResults: High JAK3 phosphorylation in CD4+ and CD8+ T cells, CD19+ B cells, and CD14+ monocytes and low JAK2\nphosphorylation in CD14+ monocytes were significantly associated with remission following treatment with\nsynthetic DMARDs.\nConclusions: Baseline JAK phosphorylation profile in peripheral blood leukocytes may provide a means to predict\ntreatment response achieved by synthetic DMARDs among patients with early RA.
Loading....