Can we safely lower doses of arthritis medication when you're doing well?

This trial is testing whether people with inflammatory arthritis conditions can safely reduce or stop their JAK inhibitor medication when their disease is well-controlled. JAK inhibitors are effective treatments, but they can increase the risk of infections and have other serious side effects. Researchers want to see if lowering the dose — or stopping it entirely — while carefully monitoring disease activity could maintain good health outcomes while reducing these risks and costs.

JAK inhibitors work well for arthritis, but they carry real safety concerns including increased infection risk and possible links to heart disease and cancer. For other arthritis medications, lowering doses in patients who are doing well has been shown to be safe and reduce side effects — but this hasn't been studied yet for JAK inhibitors, even though the potential benefits are important.