3 Results
The patients with active RA were given 99Tc-MDP or and
oral glucocorticoids for a course, the disease activities were
apparently attenuated in the two groups of 99Tc and99Tc & GC. The inflammatory markers (ESR and CRP)
went down, tender joint counts and swollen joint counts were reduced, in
turn, DAS28ESR and DAS28CRP were
decreased (Figure1 and Supplementary Table2). Comparison of treatment
between before and after, the differences are significant in both groups
(P < 0.05). These results demonstrated that99Tc-MDP or and oral glucocorticoids are efficacious
against inflammation in RA in short run. Thus, we investigated changes
of lipid profiles in the two groups between post-treatment and before.
In the two groups of the patients with active RA, the lipid profiles
were detected before treatment and after 10-day treatment enclosed TC,
TG, and HDL-C, LDL-C, and ApoA1, ApoB. According to the above lipids,
the ratio of ApoB/ApoA1 and atherogenic index have been calculated. It
is significant with P < 0.05 comparing of lipid profiles after
treatment (as treated) and before (as baseline) in the patients with
active RA (Figure2 & Table2). TG and ApoA1 were increased after
treatment of 99Tc-MDP in the group of99Tc (P < 0.05). The ratio of ApoB/ApoA1was
decreased significantly after therapy (P = 0.0036). However, atherogenic
index was also decreased, but the difference did not reach statistical
significance (P = 0.0856). In the group of 99Tc & GC,
most of lipids were changed after the combined therapy except LDL-C and
ApoB. The levels of TC, TG, and HDL-C, ApoA1 were elevated
significantly, while the ratio of ApoB/ApoA1 and atherogenic index were
both reduced, their P values < 0.05.
The correlation of between inflammation markers and lipid profile were
computed by non-parameter Spearman correlation analysis and line
regression analysis when the changes of lipid profiles were detected
after treatment of 99Tc-MDP or and glucocorticoids
(Figure3 & Supplementary Table3). The data showed that disease activity
scores (DAS28CRP or ESR) were inversely correlated with
CHO, LDL-C and ApoB (P < 0.05) in the group of99Tc. In a word, there is a correlation between DAS28
decrease and partial lipids of TC, LDL-C and ApoB increases. The results
were concordance in forementioned both of analysis methods. However, the
results of between ESR and LDL-C were different in two analysis methods.
That is, ESR was inversely related to LDL-C in non-parameter Spearman
correlation analysis (r = -0.4237, P = 0.0276) (Supplementary Table3),
while not in line regression analysis (r = -0.3460, P = 0.0771). It
possibly caused by methodological difference. There was no correlation
of between CRP and lipid profiles. The possible reason is that sample
size is too small. These results needed a large scale of samples to be
addressed.
In the group of 99Tc & GC, CRP was negatively
correlated with ApoA1, while positively correlated with the ratio of
ApoB/ApoA1 and atherogenic index (P < 0.05). Also, there were
correlation between ESR and partial lipids including HDL-C, ApoA1, and
ratio of ApoB/ApoA1(P < 0.05). ESR were inversely related to
HDL-C, ApoA1, while positively related to ratio of ApoB/ApoA1.
DAS28CRP or ESR were
inversely correlated with TG, whereas positively correlated with
atherogenic index. Moreover, DAS28CRP was also
positively related to LDL-C (Figure4). These results are similar using
two statistical analysis methods (Figure4 and Supplementary Table4).
However, there were three exceptions which were significantly
correlation using non parameter Spearman analysis (P < 0.05)
while not using line regression between DAS28CRP or ESRand the ratio of ApoB/ApoA1, DAS28ESR and LDL-C
(Supplementary Table4).