A clinical and biochemical assessment of etidronate disodium in patients with active rheumatoid arthritis.

Diphosphonates reduce the rate of bone turnover. They have additional pharmacological properties improving adjuvant arthritis in rats and lowering ESR in this condition. We have evaluated etidronate disodium, a diphosphonate commonly prescribed in the United Kingdom for Paget's disease in patients with rheumatoid arthritis.

Kinetic investigations into the possible cause of low serum histidine in rheumatoid arthritis.

To investigate the cause of low serum histidine in rheumatoid arthritis (RA) single oral and intravenous doses of L-histidine were administered to patients with active RA, and to an equal number of age and sex matched control subjects. In the first study 13 patients and their controls received a 100 mg kg-1 dose of L-histidine as an aqueous slurry. Significant differences were seen in body weight, predose baseline serum histidine concentration, Cmax, t1/2, and area under curve, AUC0-infinity.

A clinical and biochemical evaluation of etretinate in rheumatoid arthritis.

Etretinate (Tigason; Roche), which is effective in the treatment of psoriatic arthritis has immunomodulating activity in vivo. We have therefore assessed this drug in an open clinical and biochemical assessment of 24 weeks duration in rheumatoid arthritis. The treatment dose was 1.

Serum biochemistry in rheumatoid arthritis, seronegative arthropathies, osteoarthritis, SLE and normal subjects.

Most arthritic conditions are characterized by chronic inflammation, resulting in secondary changes in serum biochemistry. In an attempt to profile different mechanisms of inflammation which might account for the clinical diversity of rheumatic diseases, we have measured C-reactive protein (CRP), plasma viscosity, serum histidine and total serum sulphydryl in 259 patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA), 84 with ankylosing spondylitis (AS), 76 with osteoarthritis, 69 with psoriatic arthritis, 34 with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), 36 with Reiter's syndrome and 121 normal controls. The most extreme abnormalities were seen in rheumatoid arthritis and the least in osteoarthritis.

Serum and synovial fluid histidine: a comparison in rheumatoid arthritis and osteoarthritis.

The serum and synovial fluid (SF) histidine, sulphydryl, and protein concentrations were compared in simultaneous samples from 84 patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and a control group comprising 29 patients with osteoarthritis (OA). The SF levels of histidine were higher than the serum levels in the RA patients but significantly lower than corresponding results in patients with OA (P less than 0.001).