Synopsis
Breakthroughs in arthritis and auto-immune disease treatment This manuscript explains to both patients and Rheumatologists, in an informative and readable manner, the bewildering labyrinth through which Rheumatology has been led in order to treat and manage the many forms of Arthritis, since Cortisone, its Noble winning cure, was announced in the 1950s and then withdrawn. ARTHRITIS TREATMENT aims its help and barbs in three directions as it synopsizes the rheumatological route towards today s exciting hope: TREATING ARTHRITIS · The Aspirin Era; · The Cortisone Cure and its aftermath; · NSAIDs; · DMARDs; · Joint Aspiration; · Idiosyncratic relief agents; · and finally, This present Era using biologic medicines to fight autoimmune antibodies. TREATMENT ROADBLOCKS: § Manufacturers FDA mandated on-label use; § Side-effect that affect a few susceptible individuals causing relief agents to be withdrawn; § Fear of litigation; § Manufacturers who aim their marketing at patients rather than physicians and clinics; § Confusion generated by an endless stream of books promising cures ranging from using Devil Claw, Holism, and Acupuncture to Yoga, Qi and Homeopathy. OUR EXCITING and EXPANDING FUTURE o A growing list of biological drugs that attack autoimmune antibodies generated by T and B-cells; o Clinical off-label use of medicines to treat Rheumatoid Arthritis and similar Autoimmune diseases, such as Myositis; o The possibility that these agents will lead to treating all thirty Autoimmune diseases [they mainly affect women]; The hope that finding ways to overcome Autoimmune EFFECTs will lead researchers to finally discover the CAUSE behind our autoimmune system s killing of good cells, while allowing cancer cells to multiply. There are key issues slowing down rheumatology s ability to bring relief to autoimmune disease sufferers. · Withdrawing medicines because some predictably prone patients suffer predictable side effects. · Pharmaceutical companies fear of litigation; · Manufacturer s resistance to off-label use of their proven drugs; · End-stage classification of rheumatoid Arthritis disease; · Patients using ineffective Arthritis treatments because they make their mild case feel good; · Too little clinical use of arthritis medicines; · Reluctance of using proven anti-inflammatory agents for autoimmune diseases other the Arthritis. Dr. Argen, after going through all the drugs, medicines proposed for arthritis, describes their workings, weaknesses, how the immune system functions and how new biological agents seem to attack the antibodies attacking the synovium to cause RA and leading to so-called Degenerative Joint Disease and Osteoarthritis, if the patient lives long enough. The decades long quandary that Rheumatology fell into following the Cortisone Era, was rough for Rheumatoid Arthritic patients whose hopes had been raised so high. ARTHRITIS TREATMENT touches upon the era between Cortisone and anti-TNF- . v Nonsteroidal agents resorted to: Gold, Warm baths, NSAIDs, DMARDs and a few individual-oriented successes: local injections of steroids and Enbrel into joints. v Clinically predictable side effects are limited to a few patients, but have caused many agents bringing relief to inflammatory symptoms to be withdrawn. v The most effective channel for finding the how, when, where and the how much of what agent is to be utilized for a particular case is in closely supervised, monitored and followed-up clinical use. He illustrates this using modern biology-based medicine in off label use for various diseases. v There basically is just one or two forms of arthritis taking on many poses so that it is the main causative agent that is to be overcome and at as early a stage as possible, while it s still mild. v The path that the new drugs have cut into the autoimmune forest may inevitably
About the Author
Dr. Argen (FACP, FACT) has practiced Rheumatology for 50 years and is a leading clinical practitioner in the field.
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