Parenteral gold preparations. Efficacy and safety of therapy after switching from aurothioglucose to aurothiomalate.

Objective: For reasons of insufficient quality of the raw material, aurothioglucose was withdrawn from the Dutch market at the end of 2001. Aurothiomalate became available as an alternative preparation. We followed a cohort of patients during the first year after switching from aurothioglucose to aurothiomalate to study efficacy and tolerability.

Longterm observational study of methotrexate use in a Dutch cohort of 1022 patients with rheumatoid arthritis.

Objective: To study which factors are associated with longterm methotrexate (MTX) use in rheumatoid arthritis (RA).

Methods: All patients with RA who had started MTX after January 1, 1993, were selected from a regional hospital based registration system. Data on demographic and clinical features were retrieved through chart review.