Effect of Body Mass Index on Treatment Response of Biologic/ Targeted-Synthetic DMARDs in Patients With Rheumatoid Arthritis, Psoriatic Arthritis or Axial Spondyloarthritis. A Systematic Review

The study demonstrated that obesity is a factor that could play a role in treatment decision-making in people living with inflammatory arthritis (IA). It appears that efficacy of TNFi is affected by patients’ weight/BMI in all forms of IA, while this is not the case for TCZ and ABA in RA, as well for IL-17 and IL-23 inhibitors in PsA.

This systematic literature review was conducted to assess the effects of weight/BMI in the efficacy of all approved b/tsDMARDs for the treatment of IA. Given the potential effects of BMI on the outcomes of patients with IA, the authors review the literature presenting the results per different b/tsDMARD category.

More studies are needed to better understand and cover gaps in the available evidence, especially for newer drugs like JAK inhibitors, regarding also the true effects of BMI on disease activity and treatment response.

This systematic literature review shows that weight/BMI should be considered in the treatment-plan of IA patients, with its effect being more pronounced for TNFi compared to other b/ts-DMARDs.