Study: Aggressive Care for Early Rheumatoid Arthritis Improves Outcomes

People in the early stages of rheumatoid arthritis should receive aggressive care in order to achieve better outcomes, according to a study reported this week at the American College of Rheumatology Annual Scientific Meeting in Orlando, FL.

For 18 months, the researchers followed 110 patients with active rheumatoid arthritis who either received routine or aggressive outpatient care.

Agressive care consisted of monthly outpatient assessments with careful measurement of the activity of the arthritis, joint injections of corticosteroids and the escalating use of disease-modifying drugs including methotrexate, cyclosporine and sulfasalazine.

The researchers found that 67 percent of patients in the aggressive therapy group experienced marked improvement in their arthritis after 18 months, compared to 18 percent of patients in the routine outpatient care group.

"These patients had greatly improved physical function -- getting out of chair, getting out of the bath, dressing themselves," researcher Dr. Duncan R. Porter, a rheumatologist at Gartnavel General Hospital in Glasgow, Scotland, told reporters at a news conference October 26.

"This is a much better strategy," continued Porter.

Observing that the use of biological drugs is more widespread in the United States than Scotland and the rest of the Great Britain, Porter said aggressive therapy with disease-modifying drugs is cheaper and can be just as effective.

Other sources: American College of Rheumatology