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- arthritis
- rheumatoid
- tumor necrosis factor inhibitors
- outcome assessment
- health care
- patient reported outcome measures
We thank Zheng et al 1 for their interest in our study2 and for providing constructive comments. They mention that even though the baseline mean Clinical Disease Activity Index (CDAI) was not statistically different, the proportion of patients with moderate or high disease at baseline was different and this could have been a key effect modifier.1
We used standardised differences to evaluate variables at baseline. Calculation of the standardised difference not only accounts for the means of the two cohorts, but also the SD. We noticed that continuous CDAI was balanced across the two therapy classes (as listed in the manuscript table 1, SD=−0.015)2 and similarly observed for categorical CDAI (low/moderate/high; SD=0.0515; results not …
Footnotes
Handling editor Josef S Smolen
Contributors All authors contributed to the concept, drafting and critical review of this response letter.
Funding The authors have not declared a specific grant for this research from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.
Competing interests DAP, CE, TB, KE and JK are employees of Corrona. Corrona has been supported through contracted subscriptions in the last two years by AbbVie, Amgen, Boehringer Ingelheim, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Celgene, Crescendo, Eli Lilly and Company, Genentech, Gilead, GSK, Janssen, Merck, Momenta Pharmaceuticals, Novartis, Pfizer, Regeneron, Roche, Sun, UCB and Valeant. TK is an employee of and stockholder in Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, GSJ and SB are former employees of and stockholders in Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, and is currently an employee of Intercept Pharmaceuticals and GSK, respectively. SF is an employee of and stockholder in Sanofi. JC and RP are former employees of and stockholders in Sanofi; RP is a current employee of ConcertAI.
Patient and public involvement Patients and/or the public were not involved in the design, or conduct, or reporting, or dissemination plans of this research.
Provenance and peer review Commissioned; internally peer reviewed.