Personalised treatment of rheumatoid arthritis based on cytokine profiles and synovial tissue signatures: potentials and challenges.

Avouac, Jérôme, Kay, Jonathan and Choy, Ernest ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4459-8609 2025. Personalised treatment of rheumatoid arthritis based on cytokine profiles and synovial tissue signatures: potentials and challenges. Seminars in Arthritis and Rheumatism 73 , 152740. 10.1016/j.semarthrit.2025.152740

PDF - Published Version Available under License Creative Commons Attribution. Download (714kB)

Abstract

Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is an autoimmune, chronic inflammatory disease that mainly affects the joints and periarticular soft tissues. Although there have been significant advances in RA treatment over the past two decades, approximately 40% of patients do not respond to first-line biological disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs (bDMARDs). Physicians often use an empirical, trial-and-error approach to select bDMARDs to treat patients with RA. This is inefficient and can be costly for healthcare systems which have limited resources. Unlike in oncology, where molecular pathology helps guide targeted therapies, reliable, predictive biomarkers for drug response in RA are yet to be identified. This narrative review aims to summarise current knowledge on novel biomarkers of disease activity and drug response in RA, with a particular focus on serum cytokine profiles and macrophage and fibroblast subsets in synovial tissue. We also highlight key areas of further research that could advance the development of targeted therapies for patients with RA. We searched PubMed to identify studies pertaining to biomarkers of disease activity and drug response in the treatment of RA. We present a detailed overview of the key studies that have identified serum cytokine profiles and synovial macrophage and fibroblast subsets as novel biomarkers of disease activity and drug response in RA. A novel, evidence-based approach to precision medicine in RA, which involves tailoring treatment based on cytokine profiles and synovial tissue signatures, shows promise for improving patient care. However, more research is needed to identify biomarkers that predict drug response. [Abstract copyright: Copyright © 2025. Published by Elsevier Inc.]

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Schools > Medicine
Publisher:	Elsevier
ISSN:	0049-0172
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	9 June 2025
Date of Acceptance:	23 April 2025
Last Modified:	09 Jun 2025 10:00
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/178899

Actions (repository staff only)

Edit Item