Search for: rheumatoid arthritis    methotrexate    autoimmune disease    biomarker    gene expression    GWAS    HLA genes    non-HLA genes   

ID PMID Title PublicationDate abstract
454506 Continuing education in rheumatoid arthritis for the primary care physician. 1979 Jul An educational program in rheumatoid arthritis was developed for primary care practitioners. This program is community based and utilizes physicians, identified by their peers as being influential, for the dissemination of information. A marked change in knowledge has been noted in those completing the program, but further followup is needed to determine if a change in the care of patients with rheumatoid arthritis will also result.
4001886 Mortality in rheumatoid arthritis, particularly as regards drug use. 1985 239 persons with rheumatoid arthritis (RA), previously investigated in an epidemiological survey of RA in Stockholm, were monitored for 13 years with the aim of eliciting the cause(s) of the high mortality among persons with RA. All hospitalizations were identified through the in-patient register of Stockholm County. A study based on medical record information was performed on a group of 157 persons who had been hospitalized during the follow-up. Dead and surviving persons were compared with regard to characteristics at the start of the follow-up, drug use, and diseases other than RA during the follow-up. Male sex and high Steinbrocker functional grading were the factors most closely associated with an increased death risk. Neither drug use generally, nor use of any particular type of drug, contributory cause, the disease RA in itself--and particularly its severe forms--is the main cause of the high mortality among RA sufferers.
7073773 Palindromic onset of rheumatoid arthritis. Clinical, synovial fluid, and biopsy studies. 1982 Apr Five patients had episodic arthritis consistent with palindromic rheumatism that evolved into definite or classic rheumatoid arthritis after 1 or more years. Synovial effusions during palindromic episodes had various leukocyte counts; mononuclear cells predominated in 4 patients. Neither these effusions nor needle synovial biopsies that showed subacute superficial inflammation and microvascular disease allowed any prediction that the disease would evolve into rheumatoid arthritis. Electron-dense deposits in vessel walls suggested circulating immune complexes. There was also prominent, unidentified debris in vessel walls and in phagocytic vacuoles, which might also be important in pathogenesis.
6882041 Aetiology of rheumatoid arthritis: an attempt to transmit an infective agent from patients 1983 Aug Thirty baboons were injected intravenously and intra-articularly with material from the joints of 19 patients with active rheumatoid arthritis or with control material. Fifteen of the 30 animals received synovial fluid cells or synovial membrane cells from 3 patients with seronegative arthritis. Ten animals received pooled cells from a total of 16 cases of seropositive arthritis. Five animals were given nonrheumatoid cells. No signs of arthritis were recognised in the 27 surviving animals during 3 years of observation. No significant biochemical, haematological, or serological changes occurred during this period, and no gross or microscopic evidence of synovial or systemic disease was found post mortem.
6334866 Clinical and immunogenetic studies in multicase rheumatoid families. 1984 Autumn We have studied HLA haplotypes, autoimmune diseases and circulating autoantibodies in 23 families with multiple cases of rheumatoid arthritis; 76 per cent of rheumatoid arthritis and 70 per cent of non-rheumatoid individuals were positive for HLA-DR4. The haplotypes Bw44-Bf*S-DR4; B40-Bf*S-DR4; and B15-Bf*S-DR4 were found in 13, 9 and 7 per cent of probands respectively and the B15-Bf*S-DR4 haplotype was found between four and five times more frequently in DR4-positive rheumatoid arthritis than in DR4 positive, non-rheumatoid arthritis families. Rheumatoid arthritis segregated with a DR4 positive haplotype in 13 families and with a DR4 negative haplotype in seven. Analysis of HLA haplotype sharing showed greater than random sharing by affected siblings which is in keeping with genes within the MHS influencing susceptibility to rheumatoid arthritis. Autoimmune thyroid disorders were seen in 8 per cent of family members investigated. They were significantly more frequent in those families in which rheumatoid arthritis segregated with a non-DR4 bearing HLA haplotype. This suggests that genes for autoimmune thyroid disease might predispose to rheumatoid arthritis independently of DR4. These genes are probably not HLA-linked, as there was no trend for HLA haplotype sharing to be increased in sibling pairs with either rheumatoid arthritis and thyroid disease or rheumatoid arthritis and thyroid autoantibodies respectively.
743816 Bilateral total hip and knee replacement in adults with rheumatoid arthritis: an evaluatio 1978 Nov Sixteen patients with advanced rheumatoid arthritis who underwent total joint replacements of both hips and both knees were followed for an average of 22.8 months postoperatively. Their functional status before and after surgery was assessed by use of a special rating system for function. Fourteen of the 16 patients demonstrated higher total function scores at follow-up. Improvement was most marked in walking endurance, need for walking aids, and ability to climb stairs. Factors which were believed to predispose to less functional improvement included older age at initial surgery, longer duration of disease, more severe upper extremity involvement, and more frequent medical illnesses. There were 8 patients in whom combined hip and knee flexion in one or both lower extremities did not exceed 190 degrees after surgery. When this deficiency was combined with severe involvement of the upper extremities, difficulty with activities such as climbing stairs and arising from a chair was more common. Therefore, the goal of surgical treatment is to provide combined hip and knee flexion in excess of 190 degrees in these patients. Total joint arthroplasty has increased the likelihood of functional improvement in patients with severe rheumatoid arthritis involving the hips and knees, and encouraged the surgeon to operate earlier in the course of the disease as well as on patients with severely deformed joints.
162669 Diclofenac sodium (Voltaren): results of a multi-centre comparative trial in adult-onset r 1975 A short-term trial has been performed under double-blind conditions in 50 adult patients with rheumatoid arthritis to compare diclofenac sodium (Voltaren) with both indomethacin and placebo for efficacy and tolerability. The duration of the trial was two weeks and was a between-patient comparison of 25 mg t.i.d. diclofenac sodium, 25 mg t.i.d. indomethacin or placebo using a double-dummy technique. Forty-eight patients completed the trial. In the majority of parameters examined, diclofenac sodium was superior to placebo and indomethacin in therapeutic effect. One patient was withdrawn from the trial because of intolerance to indomethacin and one other because of severe joint pain under indomethacin therapy. Neither active compound caused clinically significant changes in blood picture or urine analysis.
6601712 Rheumatoid arthritis in a Chippewa band. II. Field study with clinical serologic and HLA-D 1983 Feb We present an in-depth study of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) in a Chippewa band. Of the 227 band members, 168 (74%) were evaluated. The unusually high prevalence of RA was confirmed in 7.1% of those studied or, minimally, 5.3% with a 100% completion rate without additional cases found. Seropositivity in those with clinically definite RA was 92% relative to rheumatoid factor and 75% for ANA. Despite the high prevalence (68%) of HLA-DR4 in this closed population, there was a significant correlation of DR4 with RA (100%). The implications of these observations in this population isolate are discussed.
6303231 Yttrium-90 therapy and 99MTc pertechnetate knee uptake measurements in the management of r 1983 Apr Twenty-eight knees with chronic arthritis and effusion were treated with intra-articular 90Y. Synovial activity was assessed by measuring 99mTc pertechnetate uptake. There was a significant difference in uptake between controls and patients. Those who had a good response to 90Y (15 patients) showed a significant decrease in uptake, not seen in those who failed to respond. The pattern of 90Y distribution was examined and appeared to correspond to areas of increased synovial activity; these patterns and their significance have not been previously reported. Factors which could help to predict response to 90Y are discussed.
2867746 Effect of acetylator phenotype on efficacy and toxicity of sulphasalazine in rheumatoid ar 1985 Dec A group of 54 patients with rheumatoid arthritis (31 fast, 23 slow acetylators) treated with sulphasalazine 3 g/day were studied retrospectively. At 24 weeks no difference in the efficacy of the drug could be shown between fast and slow acetylators. In a second prospective study 40 fast acetylators were allocated to 3 g/day and 20 slow acetylators to 1.5 g/day. At 24 weeks marked improvement was seen in the fast acetylators given high dose but not the slow acetylators given low dose. It was also noted in this study that the usual ratio of fast : slow acetylators was reversed, and there is some suggestion that fast acetylators may be predisposed to more severe rheumatoid arthritis. The toxicity pattern in a total of 149 patients (83 fast, 66 slow acetylators) was also studied. Significantly more slow acetylators stopped treatment because of nausea or vomiting, or both, but serious toxicity was not confined to either group. Acetylator phenotype therefore appears important in determining the incidence of nausea and/or vomiting associated with sulphasalazine therapy in patients with rheumatoid arthritis but has no effect on the occurrence of potentially serious toxicity or efficacy. Thus prior measurement of acetylator phenotype in patients with rheumatoid arthritis confers little practical benefit in their management.
3970035 Epidemiology of cancer in rheumatoid arthritis: methodologic pitfalls. 1985 Jan 21 Studies that try to associate immunoinflammatory disease, typified by rheumatoid arthritis, and malignancy have been limited by several important methodologic difficulties. Usually the hypothesis examined has been one of an increase in incidence of one or more specific neoplasms, and sometimes this hypothesis has been generated after examining the data. Some of the more common methods for assessing risk, including case reports and small series, case-control studies, hospital-based studies, and animal studies, and the competing risk fallacy can create problems of interpretation and can skew the results. The ideal study is one in which a random sample of 1,000 or more patients with rheumatoid arthritis are followed prospectively from disease onset to death and the data compared with total population data over the same period. Ideally, there would be perfect follow-up and autopsy information available on all patients and all control patients. Such studies of course will not be available. However, those studies that are designed best fail to associate rheumatoid arthritis with malignancy, although certain specific malignancies do appear associated with alkylating agent therapy for rheumatoid arthritis.
1154196 Rheumatic disorders in the South African Negro. Part I. Rheumatoid arthritis and ankylosin 1975 Jul 26 Epidemiological studies to determine the prevalence of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) have been carried out in two South African Negro populations: one rural people in the north-western Transvaal, and the other an urban community in Johannesburg. Altogether 1352 subjects over the age of 15 years were examined clinically and radiologically; serological tests for rheumatoid factor (RF) were carried out in 920. Rheumatoid arthritis was graded 'definite' or 'probable' on the basis of a modification of the 'Rome criteria' of 1963. A marked difference in the prevalence of RA was encountered in the two populations. Among the rural Blacks only 1 respondent had definite RA and 6 had probable RA, giving a prevalence of 0,87% for combined definite and probable RA. Among the urban group 5 respondents had definite RA and 13 had probable RA, a combined prevalence of 3,3%. This difference is statistically highly significant (P less than 0,01). Moreover, the form and severity of the disorder differed markedly in the two populations. In the rural community such changes as were encountered were invariable mild and no-one had clinical features resembling classical rheumatoid arthritis; by contrast, among the urban Blacks the changes resembled those of rheumatoid disease in White populations. Such marked differences in genetically closely related communities point to the importance of sociological and environmental factors in the pathogenesis of rheumatoid arthritis.
496603 Rheumatoid arthritis: failure of daily heat therapy to affect its progression. 1979 Sep Seventeen volunteers with symmetrical rheumatoid arthritis (RA) applied heat to 1 hand twice daily for 2 years. Joint swelling, joint tenderness and grip strength were measured at intervals. The proliferative aspect of the disease was assessed by roentgenograms using a scoring system. There was no difference between experimental hand and control hand in any of the factors measured. The patients found the heat soothing and comforting. Thus, daily heat therapy did not accelerate the proliferative lesion in RA and may remain as an adjunct to therapy.
935825 Changes in muscle fibre size and physical performance in patients with rheumatoid arthriti 1976 Ten patients with rheumatoid arthritis of moderate severity were given 6 weeks' intense physical training. During the investigation period the patients improved their physical performance capacity as well as their rate of perceived exertion. There was an increase in the muscle fibre size, of type I and type II, most pronounced in the latter fibre group. No 'flare-up' of the arthritis could be seen during the training period. Comments are made as to which patients might benefit by a short-term physical training.
6501370 The Stanmore total elbow replacement for rheumatoid arthritis. 1984 Nov Between 1970 and 1982, 50 total elbow replacements were carried out for rheumatoid arthritis using the Stanmore prosthesis. A long-term follow-up of the 44 elbows available for review is presented. Thirty-four of these (77%) had good results, five were fair, and five were poor. The complications and limitations are discussed.
154196 HLA--Dw4 and rheumatoid arthritis. 1979 Jan Forty-seven patients with a "definite" or "classical" rheumatoid arthritis according to the ARA criteria were typed for the serologically detectable HLA--A, --B, and --C antigens and 36 of these patients were typed for the HLA--D antigens, Dw1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, and 8 by the MLC technique. The frequency of Dw4 was increased to 44.4% in the patients compared to 17.2% in normal controls (P = 8 X 10(-4)). The frequency of Dw1 and Dw7 was also increased although this was only of borderline significance. The frequency of Dw2 was remarkably low, especially in females, which is of interest, as the same antigen has a low frequency in some other autoimmune diseases. No significant deviations of the frequencies of HLA--A, --B, and --C antigens were found in rheumatoid arthritis patients.
7089506 Healing of erosions in rheumatoid arthritis. 1982 In rheumatoid arthritis (RA) such early radiographic changes as soft tissue swelling and osteoporosis may well be reversible. Narrowing of the joint space and bone erosion are late changes generally considered to be non-reversible. Our observation suggest, however, that healing of bone erosions, especially in joints in which inflammation had disappeared, is more common than is generally believed. We describe three patients with classical RA in whom serial radiographs showed that the bone erosion in one or more of the joints of their hands or feet had healed.
454499 Plasmapheresis and lymphoplasmapheresis in the management of rheumatoid arthritis. 1979 Jul We have demonstrated the efficacy of therapeutic pheresis in a number of rheumatic diseases, especially rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Ten of 12 patients with RA went into remissions averaging 4 months. These patients were pheresed 20 times over 11 weeks in a tapering fashion on a Haemonetics Model 30 Blood Processor. Clinical remissions were sustained even though serologies, immunoglobulins, immune functions, sedimentation rates, and circulating immune complexes returned to their pre-pheresis baseline by pheresis number 20. All these patients were taking gold or D-penicillamine concurrently, but neither of the 2 patients who failed to respond was on these agents. Plasmapheresis was just as effective as lymphoplasmapheresis. It is theorized that removal of a plasma factor that modulates lymphocyte or neutrophil function produces remissions in RA and that long-acting drugs (e.g., gold or penicillamine) are able to prevent its continued production and produce a sustained remission.
1099509 Preventive surgery - tenosynovectomy and synovectomy. 1975 Jul The goal of preventative rheumatoid hand surgery is the eradication of the diseased synovium or tenosynovium before irreparable joint or tendon destruction occurs. Although there is general agreement that both dorsal and flexor tenosynovectomy are reliable and effective procedures to prevent the complications of tenosynovitis, the case for synovectomy is less well established. We have discussed the indications for both tenosynovectomy and synovectomy and described the surgical techniques used for dorsal tenosynovectomy and flexor tenosynovectomy in the wrist, palm, and digits. In addition, the treatment of both extensor and flexor tendon ruptures has been presented.
1006212 Changes in muscle fibre size and physical performance in patients with rheumatoid arthriti 1976 Ten patients with rheumatoid arthritis of moderate severity were given 7 months' physical training. During the investigation period the patiens improved their physical performance capacity as well as they lowered their rate of perceived exertion during submaximum exercise. There was a small increase in muscle fibre size and a correlation was found between muscle strength and type II fibre size. Clinical examination and X-ray studies did not reveal any further joint destruction during the investigation period.