TNF and rheumatoid arthritis: In addition to the results shown in Fig. 3, a sensitivity analysis in patients discontinuing TNF inhibitors (n = 26) revealed that RA flare was observed in 83.3% (10 of 12) of patients with sTNFR1 above the cut-off value which was significantly greater than the flare rate of 28.6% (4 of 14) patients with sTNFR1 below the cut-off value (p = 0.0079).