PhD defence N. (Nathalie) Luurssen- Masurel

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.