One year in review 2019: novelties in the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis.

One year in review 2019: novelties in the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis. Clin Exp Rheumatol. 2019 May 24; Authors: Silvagni E, Di Battista M, Bonifacio AF, Zucchi D, Governato G, Scirè CA Abstract The current treatment approach in rheumatoid arthritis (RA) follows a stepwise management, starting from early introduction of conventional synthetic (cs) disease-modifying anti-rheumatic drugs (DMARDs), moving to biological (b) DMARDs and targeted synthetic (ts) DMARDs. In the last few years, new drugs with different mechanisms of action have demonstrated their efficacy in treating such a disabling condition, and their approval, along with other more "experienced" treatments, has established their effectiveness on disease activity, damage accrual prevention, patients' quality of life improvement, confirming their safety profile. Moreover, new molecular pathways are under investigation as potential targets of new advanced therapies. Clinicians' capability of stratifying treatment strategies and decisions has improved, with several new tools for the optimisation of long-term management of RA; however, a high proportion of patients are refractory to the available drugs. Finally, as RA is a systemic disease, the knowledge in multi-systemic complications of the disease has grown, as well as the possibility in improving extra-articular manifestations of the disease, although certain drugs have potentially relevant non-articular effects, whi...
Source: Clinical and Experimental Rheumatology - Category: Rheumatology Tags: Clin Exp Rheumatol Source Type: research