de Moel EC, et al. - This trial was conducted to investigate if the initial and long-term treatment outcomes were influenced by the composition of autoantibody profile in rheumatoid arthritis, as a marker of the underlying immunopathology. Findings suggested that a broad baseline autoantibody profile was related to a better early treatment response. A more active humoral autoimmunity could be indicated by the breadth of the baseline autoantibody profile, which reflected a break in tolerance against several different autoantigens and extensive isotype switching. This could help in making the underlying disease processes initially more suppressible by medication. The lack of relationship with long-term sustained drug-free remission was indicated, which suggested that the relevance of the baseline autoantibody profile diminished with time.