Ex-vivo Cell-based Assay for Assessment of Response to TNF Inhibitors in Patients with Rheumatic Diseases

TNF inhibitors (TNFi) comprise 5 products whose structure and signalling differ. An individual patient with a rheumatic disease may respond to one TNFi but not to another. In addition, 30-40% of the patients respond inadequately to TNFi. The different TNFi downstream signalling may lead to their clinical efficacy. Several reports showed that TNFi exhibited differential effects on Th17 cells. We analyzed the different TNFi effects on IL-17A expression in the peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) of patients with rheumatic diseases in order to evaluate the predictive capability of responses in an ex-vivo setting.