If this is not your name, click here.
| | If this is not your name, click here. | | |
| | Contact Us | Order Now | Journals | Bookstore | Register a colleague | | |
| |  Early Treatment With Methotrexate and Steroids Helps Patients With Rheumatoid Arthritis Achieve Remission: Presented at ACR/ARHP By Ed Susman ATLANTA -- November 9, 2010 -- Patients diagnosed with early symptoms of rheumatoid arthritis who were treated aggressively with methotrexate and steroids were able to achieve remission from the disease, researchers stated here at the 2010 Annual Scientific Meeting of the American College of Rheumatology/Association of Rheumatology Health Professionals (ACR/ARHP). “The results show that in this group of patients with earlier -- and on average less active -- rheumatoid arthritis, remission percentages are higher than with similar treatment in more active disease, and that the addition of high-tapered-to-low prednisone to methotrexate works in undifferentiated arthritis,” said C.F. (Renee) Allaart, MD, PhD, Leiden University Medical Center, Leiden, the Netherlands. Dr. Allaart said that 153 of 261 (58%) patients diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis achieved remission in this study, as did 107 of 161 (66.5%) patients diagnosed with undifferentiated arthritis. Overall, 63% of patients achieved remission in this study, she said, speaking here at a press briefing on November 8. The study was presented as an oral poster on November 9. Dr. Allaart noted that previously published early remission rates for active rheumatoid arthritis are less than 30%. “We now will try to taper and stop the medication in order to achieve drug-free remission,” she said. “The persons in our study are those with the earliest symptoms,” said Dr. Allaart. “Rheumatoid arthritis is a nasty disease. It makes you ill. It makes you sore. And if you do not interrupt the progress of the disease, it will make you disabled.” Dr. Allaart added that the patients in this study probably don’t meet all the criteria for rheumatoid arthritis, but that if doctors wait until they can confirm that the patient has rheumatoid arthritis, that patient already will have advanced disease. The goal of the Induction Therapy With Methotrexate and Prednisone in Rheumatoid or Very Early Arthritic Disease (IMPROVED) study was to treat patients at the earliest signs of disease with methotrexate 25 mg/week and prednisone 60 mg/day, which was tapered down to 7.5 mg/day over the course of 7 weeks. The researchers planned to help these patients achieve remission and wean them off drugs. In the preliminary report, Dr. Allaart discussed outcomes among 422 patients of the 610 total participants. “Patients who do not go into remission will be randomised to other treatments,” she explained. “After 4 months of therapy, 63% of our patients in this study are in remission,” she said. The goal of tapering the drugs, she explained, is ongoing, but no information is yet available on maintaining remission without drug therapy. “This is very encouraging,” Dr. Allaart concluded about the results thus far. She noted that the researchers examined possible predictors of achieving remission and found that the intensity of disease symptoms was a possible predictor. “Lower disease activity gets to achieve remission earlier. In undifferentiated arthritis, men have a greater likelihood of achieving remission,” she stated. Individuals were eligible for this study if the symptoms of rheumatoid arthritis had been observed in them for the past 2 years. [Presentation title: Induction Therapy With Methotrexate and Prednisone in Rheumatoid or Very Early Arthritic Disease: IMPROVED Study. Abstract 1396]
|
