Background: Rheumatoid arthritis is a long-term autoimmune condition that impairs joint function and drastically lowers quality of life. Methotrexate, one of the disease-modifying anti-rheumatic drugs acts differently depending on the genotypes being examined when used as an anchor medicine to treat rheumatoid arthritis.
Aim of the Study: The present study was aimed to evaluate the impact of methylenetetrahydrofolate reductase gene C677T (rs1801133) polymorphism on the clinical outcome of methotrexate treatment as regards treatment efficacy or toxicity in Egyptian rheumatoid arthritis patients.
Subjects and Methods: This study was carried on 45 patients diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis receiving methotrexate as a first line of treatment. Determination of methylenetetrahydrofolate reductase gene C677T (rs1801133) polymorphism was carried out using Real-time polymerase chain reaction.
Results: The results of the this study revealed that statistically significant difference was found between the responders to the treatment and non-responders in the disease activity measured by DAS 28 score; however no statistically significant difference was observed between the responders and non-responders in the rate of treatment complications nor the frequencies of the studied genotypes.
Conclusion: Our findings suggested that there is no significant association between the genotypic frequencies of the methylenetetrahydrofolate reductase gene C677T (rs1801133) polymorphism among the responders and the non-responder's group in patients with rheumatoid arthritis.