- Promotor
- Promotor
- Co-promotor
- Date
- Tuesday 30 Aug 2022, 13:00 - 14:30
- Type
- PhD defence
- Space
- Professor Andries Querido room
- Building
- Erasmus Building
- Location
- Erasmus MC

On Tuesday, 30 August 2022, N. (Nathalie) Luurssen- Masurel will defend her PhD dissertation, entitled: ‘New Insights in the Three Clinical Phenotypes of Early (Rheumatoid) Arthritis’.
Dissertation in short:
Clinical and radiological outcomes in rheumatoid arthritis (RA) have improved enormously in the last decades, due to early detection of the disease, early initiation of ‘intensive’ therapy
and a treat-to-target approach. Early diagnosis and more insight into the pathophysiology and disease course have led to a greater diversity in the disease RA, in which we now
recognize three clinical phenotypes, namely undifferentiated arthritis (UA), autoantibodynegative RA (RA-) and autoantibody-positive RA (RA+), which is mainly based upon the difference in risk of (progression of) erosive disease. However, due to the improved management of RA, the various clinical phenotypes now show less prominent differences in radiographic damage. Therefore, in this thesis we discussed whether other differences exist between the different phenotypes, with a focus on clinical as well as patient-relevant
outcomes. We also explored if treatment could be stratified on these clinical phenotypes from a clinical as well as an economic point of view.
- More information
The public defence will begin exactly at 13.00 hrs. The doors will be closed once the public defence starts, latecomers can access the hall via the fourth floor. Due to the solemn nature of the ceremony, we recommend that you do not take children under the age of 6 to the first part of the ceremony.
A live stream link has been provided to the candidate.