Efficacy of anti-TNF biologic agent, infliximab, for RA patients using transcriptome analysis of white blood cells

Forty-two and 26 consecutive RA patients followed at Saitama Medical Center, for retrospective and verification studies, respectively, who were resistant to standard MTX treatment, were enrolled. The serum CRP level was used for the definition of the level of inflammation of each patient, 0.3 mg/dl or less as “no inflammation” (NI), and more than 0.3 mg/dl as “residual inflammation” (RI) at 14 weeks after the first treatment with infliximab infusion. Differentially expressed genes between the NI and RI patients in the retrospective/training set were extracted, and these genes were verified using the verification set.