PICOS used to outline the research question
| Participants | Biologics and methotrexate-naïve adult patients with clinically active early rheumatoid arthritis with a disease duration ≤1 year or symptom duration ≤2 years |
| Intervention | Initial combination therapy (methotrexate+tumour necrosis factor inhibitor) and then discontinuation of the tumour necrosis factor inhibitor |
| Comparison | Methotrexate monotherapy |
| Outcome | Proportion of patients achieving low disease activity (DAS28<3.2) at follow-up after discontinuation of tumour necrosis factor inhibitor or achieving remission (DAS28<2.6) after discontinuation of tumour necrosis factor inhibitor |
| Study design | Randomised controlled trials |
DAS, Disease Activity Score.