Most patients with early rheumatoid arthritis (RA) undergoing treat-to-target therapy can expect to see a reduction in fatigue levels after just three months, a study shows.

The findings suggest a close relationship between levels of disease activity and patient-reported fatigue, although this did not hold for all patients, the Norwegian researchers say.

The team from the University of Oslo carried out a post-hoc analysis of data from the ARCTIC trial in which 230 patients with early untreated RA had been randomly allocated to use of musculoskeletal ultrasound, or no ultrasound use, in treat-to-target decisions.

As no difference had been found between the two arms of the ARCTIC (Aiming for Remission in Rheumatoid Arthritis: A Randomised Trial Examining the Benefit of Ultrasound in a Clinical Tight Control Regime) study, the researchers pooled patient data on fatigue collected at baseline and at all 13 scheduled visits to the rheumatology clinic over two years of follow-up for their new analysis.