New effective, safe and cheap treatment strategy for rheumatoid arthritis
2014-11-10
(Press-News.org) A new drug combination for rheumatoid arthritis treats the disease just as well as other intensive treatment strategies but with less medication and fewer side effects at a significantly lower cost. Doctoral researcher Diederik De Cock (KU Leuven) describes the strategy in a new study published in Annals of Rheumatic Diseases.
Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a chronic auto-immune disease that causes pain and stiffness in the joints, fatigue, bone damage and, eventually, loss of mobility. RA afflicts around 1% of people in the western world; in Belgium, 80,000 to 100,000 people currently live with the disease.
Because there is no known cure for RA, physicians focus treatment on suppressing disease activity. Therapies have improved in recent years, and clinical studies show that intensive treatment of early RA can prevent joint damage and improve patients' quality of life.
In the two-year study, called 'CareRA' (Care in early RA), researchers and clinicians in the rheumatology unit at University Hospitals Leuven examined various therapies for early RA. Their goal: to find the optimal combination and dosage of three commonly prescribed antirheumatic drugs (methotrexate, sulfasalazine and leflunomide) in combination with glucocorticoids (a class of steroid hormones).
The researchers divided 290 early RA patients into three treatment groups. Each group received a different combination therapy: 'COBRA Classic' (methotrexate, sulfasalazine and a high first dose of glucocorticoids), 'COBRA Slim' (methotrexate and a moderate dose of glucocorticoids) or 'COBRA Avant-Garde' (methotrexate, leflunomide and a moderate dose of glucocorticoids).
All three strategies showed a similarly high efficacy: disease remission was achieved in 7 in 10 patients after 16 weeks of treatment. But the strategies varied significantly when it came to side effects.
The new COBRA Slim strategy, which calls for the least amount of medication, had half as many side effects as the two other strategies - and was just as effective. The strategy would also be easier to implement in daily practice because it is less complicated.
A broader use of this strategy would lead to higher remission rates in the global early RA population and would probably reduce the need for expensive second-line antirheumatic treatment, say the researchers.
"One surprising finding in the study was the high remission values recorded for all of the applied intensive treatment strategies, which were unprecedented internationally," says Diederik De Cock, doctoral researcher at the Research Centre for Skeletal Biology and Engineering (KU Leuven).
"Methotrexate is very affordable, as are steroids," says Diederik De Cock. "Implementing this therapy across Flanders would mean substantial savings. At the moment, RA treatment is not yet adequately standardized in Belgium, and this leads to treatment inefficiencies. As a result, more patients require expensive second-line antirheumatic therapies known as biologicals, which can cost up to 15,000 euros per year. By comparison, the COBRA Slim strategy costs less than 1,000 euros. In other words, we can treat up to 15 patients for the same price as a year of treatment with a biological," says Diederik De Cock.
INFORMATION:
This research benefited from the support of the IWT (Agency for Innovation by Science and Technology) and the Pfizer Chair for Early Rheumatoid Arthritis Management at the KU Leuven held by Professor Patrick Verschueren. The study was conducted in partnership with various rheumatology centres in Flanders.
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
2014-11-10
Hidden away in the tropical darkness of nocturnal Madagascar, scientists have discovered a new species of gecko which has been described in the open access journal Zoosystematics and Evolution.
A master of disguise, the new species Paroedura hordiesi has camouflage pattern to blend with its natural habitat, while climbing on rocks and the ruins of an old fort, where it was spotted by scientists.
Home of the new gecko, the karstic limestone massifs in the region of northern Madagascar are believed to still harbour further undescribed reptile species, some of which might ...
2014-11-10
BOSTON - The innate immune system serves as the body's specialized armed forces division, comprised of a host of defense mechanisms used to battle bacterial infections. Among the system's warriors are white blood cells including the specialized macrophages, which maintain constant surveillance for foreign intruders or pathogens, functioning as the body's first line of defense, poised to attack at barrier sites including the skin, lungs and intestines.
Now, a research team led by investigators at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) finds that naturally occurring ...
2014-11-10
Recognizing the emotions other people feel is crucial for establishing proper interpersonal relations. To do so, we look at (amongst other things) facial expressions and body posture. Unfortunately, in some neurological disorders this ability is heavily impaired. This happens, for example, in multiple sclerosis where scientific evidence shows that people affected by the disease often have trouble recognizing expressions that communicate emotions. A new study now demonstrates that the same difficulty may also be encountered with emotions conveyed by posture. In addition, ...
2014-11-10
A newly identified signaling pathway that stimulates glucose uptake in brown fat cells might be useful for treating type 2 diabetes and obesity, according to a study in The Journal of Cell Biology.
When the body encounters cold temperatures, the sympathetic nervous system activates adrenoceptors on the surface of brown fat cells to stimulate glucose uptake from the bloodstream. Brown fat cells then use this glucose as a fuel source to generate body heat. Glucose uptake also can be induced by insulin. However, although insulin-stimulated glucose-uptake is well understood, ...
2014-11-10
THE term 'spirituality' is now widely used to describe the qualities that give people hope, meaning and purpose. In the case of patients, it can aid their recovery. The University of Huddersfield has become a key centre for research into spirituality and how it can be integrated into health care teaching and practice.
Articles, overseas conference presentations and now close links with an NHS trust are among the recent outputs and activities of the University's Spirituality Special Interest Group, based in the School of Human and Heath Sciences. Established for ten ...
2014-11-10
WASHINGTON, Nov. 10, 2014 -- Throughout the history of science, many major discoveries came accidentally. Sometimes they came from recognizing potential in an unexpected product or even a failed recipe's waste. Other times, discovery came out of pure desperation from a seemingly dead-end experiment. This week, Reactions celebrates those happy accidents that ended up changing the world in the first episode of a new sub-series, "Legends of Chemistry." Check out the video here: http://youtu.be/Xowen_a787Y.
Subscribe to the series at Reactions YouTube, and follow us on Twitter ...
2014-11-10
A darting mouse may hold an important clue in the development of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), autism and bipolar disorder, according to a study by a Vanderbilt University-led research team recently published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The transgenic mouse, into which was inserted a rare human genetic variation in the dopamine transporter (DAT), could lead to improvements in the diagnosis and treatment of these all-too-common brain disorders, said Randy Blakely, Ph.D., the report's senior author.
The mutation, which has ...
2014-11-10
AUGUSTA, Ga. - A gene known to play a major role in constricting blood vessels also appears to be a major player in the aberrant blood vessel growth that can destroy the vision of premature babies.
Endothelin gene expression is greatly increased in the retinal tissue of a mouse model of retinopathy of prematurity, a condition that significantly affects about 1,500 infants annually, resulting in blindness in about half those babies, according to researchers at the Medical College of Georgia at Georgia Regents University.
The finding points toward a new therapy to help ...
2014-11-10
Ann Arbor, MI, November 10, 2014 -- Public health researchers seeking to determine an individual's risk of developing cardiovascular disease (CVD), coronary heart disease (CHD), or stroke have previously relied on national US data, such as that provided by the National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys (NHANES). Now, new data compiled and evaluated by researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) provide information at the state level for the first time, paving the way for targeted intervention programs. Their results appear in the American ...
2014-11-10
(Boston)--A new study has found it is possible to distinguish between different hemorrhagic fevers, including Marburg (Ebola cousin) and Lassa before the person becomes symptomatic.
The study, which appears in the journal BMC Genomics will allow for the development of better diagnostics, especially during the early stages of disease, when treatments have a greater chance of being effective.
Hemorrhagic fevers include Lassa, which is endemic in Western Africa and Marburg, which causes sporadic outbreaks in Africa associated with high rates of mortality. The early symptoms ...
LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:
[Press-News.org] New effective, safe and cheap treatment strategy for rheumatoid arthritis
