Assessment of renal function in rheumatoid arthritis: validity of a new prediction method.

Medical treatment of patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) requires assessment of renal function. Because determination of endogenous creatinine clearance from a 24-hour urine collection is an unreliable and time-consuming procedure, several formulae that predict creatinine clearance from clinical and serum parameters have been developed. However, because of muscular atrophy, these formulae show lower correlations with measured creatinine clearance in patients with RA than in the healthy population.

A single dose, placebo controlled study of the fully human anti-tumor necrosis factor-alpha antibody adalimumab (D2E7) in patients with rheumatoid arthritis.

Objective: To assess the pharmacokinetics, safety profile, and efficacy of the fully human anti-tumor necrosis factor-alpha (anti-TNF-alpha) monoclonal antibody adalimumab (D2E7) in patients with long-standing, active rheumatoid arthritis (RA).

Methods: This was a randomized, double blind, placebo controlled study of single intravenous injections of ascending doses (0.5 to 10 mg/kg) of adalimumab in 5 cohorts of 24 patients each (18 adalimumab and 6 placebo in all cohorts except the 0.

Patient and physician satisfaction with rofecoxib in osteoarthritis: results of a post-marketing surveillance study in primary care in Germany.

A post-marketing surveillance study was conducted in Germany to assess the efficacy and tolerability of rofecoxib in the treatment of osteoarthritis (OA). Patients were eligible for inclusion in this study if they were being treated for the first time or being switched from other medications. More than three-quarters of the 80,371 patients enrolled in the study reported improved pain relief and function during treatment with rofecoxib (12.