Many people with psoriatic arthritis live with pain despite receiving biologic treatment real-world data shows, but this doesn’t necessarily mean the treatment isn’t working.

The survey involved 782 consecutive patients with psoriatic arthritis (PsA) from 13 countries across Europe, the Middle East, Asia and the United States who were all taking biologic DMARDs.

One third of the cohort reported mild pain and the rest reported severe pain, lead author Professor Phil Conaghan from the University of Leeds in the UK told the congress.

Increasing severity of pain was associated with decreased health related quality of life, greater use of pain medication, reduced physical functioning and engagement in work activities and productivity.

 “I often talk to patients about the ever-diminishing circle of life… increasing pain means less mobility, less mobility means their social life diminishes and depression takes over,” said Professor Conaghan.

Acknowledging the limitations with real world data he said the findings highlighted the need for PsA treatments that provided sustained improvement in pain and reduced the impact of the disease on patients’ daily life.

“Pain is complex and is likely due to both inflammatory and mechanical drivers,” he said.

“We should also assess whether a given biologic therapy is adequately controlling inflammation and consider non-inflammatory causes of joint pain,” he added.