Difficult-to- manage and treatment refractory axial Spondyloarthritis: Systematic review and meta-analysis of prevalence and determinants.
Rana S · 2026 · Autoimmunity reviews
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What this paper found
Pooling 11 studies of 5,648 patients, about one in ten people with axial spondyloarthritis have difficult-to-manage disease despite two or more biologics, and the strongest links were fibromyalgia, smoking and carrying HLA-B27. Persistent symptoms often reflect something other than ongoing inflammation, which changes what the next step should be.
Why this is on the map
Sets the benchmark number for difficult-to-manage axSpA and separates inflammatory from non-inflammatory causes of feeling stuck.
On the map under these threads
DOI: 10.1016/j.autrev.2026.104188 · opens in a new tab. The full paper is on the publisher’s site, not here.
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