Metabolic syndrome and its relationship with the achievement of minimal disease activity state in psoriatic arthritis patients: an observational study.

Abstract The aim of the study was to evaluate the influence of metabolic syndrome (MetS) on achieving minimal disease activity (MDA) in psoriatic arthritis (PsA) patients treated with anti-tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-a with a follow-up period of 24 months. A cohort of PsA patients was assessed at the University Federico II of Naples and atUniversity of Padova. For the aim of the present study, patients’ datawere collected at baseline (T0), at 12 months (T1) and at 24 months (T2). Assessment ofmetabolic and disease activity parameters was performed at each visit. The NCEP-ACT III criteria were used to identify subjects withMetS and theMDAcriteria to evaluate the disease activity.Onthe basis of the exclusion and inclusion criteria, 330 subjectswere included in the study; 134 patients (40.7 %)were classified as not havingMetS and 196 (59.3 %) as havingMetS.Aninverse association was found between presence of metabolic syndrome and the probability of achieving MDA. Univariate analysis indicated that patients with metabolic syndrome were less likely to achieve MDA than patients without metabolic syndrome (OR 0.45, p\0.001). This inverse association remained statistically significant in the multivariate regression model (OR 0.56, p\0.001). Metabolic syndrome is associated with a lower probability of achieving MDA in PsA patients in therapy with anti-TNF-a.