MALE RHEUMATOID ARTHRITIS IN ALL MOROCCAN RA UNDERGOING BIOTHERAPY: PREVALENCE, CHARACTERISTICS, AND RESPONSE TO BIOLOGICAL TREATMENTS (NATIONAL REGISTRY)

Introduction:This study aims at reporting the RA male frequency while undergoing biotherapy and describing the epidemiological characteristics (clinical, biological and radiological) in relation to female RA. It also evaluates its impact on the response to biological treatments.

Materials and methods: There are 224 patients followed for rheumatoid arthritis, responding to ACR/EULAR 2010 criteria during their biotherapy. They were included in the national RBSMR registry. The patients were divided into two groups and were compared at the basis of their gender in terms of the socio-demographic, clinical, biological, radiological parameters, and response to the treatement.

Results: The average age of the patients under study is 51.94 ans±11.36 years old [20-80]. The presence of male rheumatoid arthritis under biotherapy is 12.4%. The mean age of RA male is 55.96+9 years old. The estimated duration of progression of male RA is 542 weeks with an average diagnostic deadline of 562.61 weeks.

As a description of the case study, 28,6% of men are diagnosed with cormobidities (mainly tuberculosis 21.4%) while 10,7% of men are smokers. There is an average sedimentation rate (1st hour) at 52.6mm. Rheumatoid serology is found to be positive in 96.4% of cases. Radiological abnormalities are observed in 90.5% of the cases. Male rheumatoid arthritis is related to a shorter duration of progression (542 versus 768 weeks in females, p=0.01), liberal profession (p=0.00), study level (p=0.003), duration between diagnosis and the starting of biotherapy (p=0.021), EVA pain patient and physician (p=0.003, p=0.01) Tobacco (p=0.006), and pulmonary tuberculosis (p=0.029). On the other hand, it was not associated with the following parameters: age, duration of diagnosis, disease intensity, rheumatoid serology, structural damage nor with the DAS 28vs response during one year.

Conclusion: The male RA rate in RBSMR study is 12.4% in that there is no significant difference between the sexes in clinical presentation, disease activity, disease severity, rheumatoid serology and response to the biotherapy. However, male RA was related to smoking, liberal profession, and history or occurrence of pulmonary tuberculosis.