Prevention of the progressive biochemical cartilage destruction under methotrexate therapy in early rheumatoid arthritis.

CONCLUSIONS: Under MTX therapy, biochemical cartilage integrity remains stable; no further cartilage destruction occurred if patients were treated early in the course of the disease. In addition, six months of MTX therapy triggered an alignment of dGEMRIC index of MCP joints with initially severe synovitis and less severe synovitis in an intra-individual assessment. This underlines the importance of an early treatment in eRA to reduce further cartilage damage of the inflamed joints. PMID: 29998824 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]
Source: Clinical and Experimental Rheumatology - Category: Rheumatology Tags: Clin Exp Rheumatol Source Type: research