Disease-modifying treatment in rheumatoid arthritis: treat early and do not forget to try to taper and stop.

We thank Professor Zeidler1 for the interest in our study, in which we showed an increased chance and a shorter time to achieve disease-modifying antirheumatic drug (DMARD)-free sustained remission in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) treated with present strategies (early start of methotrexate and treat-to-target approach) compared with treatment strategies that were applied 10 years ago.2 DMARD-free sustained remission in the study was defined as the sustained absence of synovitis (by physical examination) after discontinuation of DMARD therapy (including biologics and systemic or intra-articular corticosteroids) for the entire follow-up and at least for 1 year after DMARD …