Science, medicine, and the future: Treatment of rheumatoid arthritis

摘要

Rheumatoid arthritis is the commonest form of inflammatory arthritis and affects about 1% of the population. The clinical presentation is heterogeneous with a wide variation in age at onset, degree of joint involvement, and severity. In addition, it is difficult to predict at diagnosis which patients will develop severe disease. Nearly 90% of patients with aggressive disease will become clinically disabled within 20 years. Furthermore, in patients with severe disease or extra-articular symptoms mortality is equal to that for patients with triple artery coronary artery disease or stage Ⅳ Hodgkin's lymphoma. Thus the view that rheumatoid arthritis is a benign disease has been discredited.