Nonsteroidal antiinflammatory drug withdrawal in patients with stable rheumatoid arthritis.

Objective: To evaluate the effect of nonsteroidal antiinflammatory drug (NSAID) withdrawal on blood pressure (BP), 44-joint Disease Activity Score (DAS44), and functional assessments in patients with stable rheumatoid arthritis (RA).

Methods: NSAID was withdrawn from 30 patients with stable RA (DAS44 ≤ 2.8).

Combination therapy with sulfasalazine and methotrexate is more effective than either drug alone in patients with rheumatoid arthritis with a suboptimal response to sulfasalazine: results from the double-blind placebo-controlled MASCOT study.

Background: Optimal use of disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs (DMARDs) in rheumatoid arthritis is vital if progression of disease is to be reduced. Methotrexate (MTX) and sulfasalazine (SASP) are widely used inexpensive DMARDs, recently often combined despite no firm evidence of benefit from previous studies.

Aim: To establish whether a combination of SASP and MTX is superior to either drug alone in patients with rheumatoid arthritis with a suboptimal response to 6 months of SASP.

"5D" Outcome in 52 patients with rheumatoid arthritis surviving 20 years after initial disease modifying antirheumatic drug therapy.

Objective: Evaluation of a complex and variable disease such as rheumatoid arthritis (RA) poses a challenge particularly over the medium to long term. A practical framework to evaluate clinically relevant outcomes over the long term is the "5D" approach of Fries, described in 1980. We describe the 20 year outcome in 52 survivors of a 123 patient cohort in terms of change in discomfort, disability, drug side effects, dollar costs, and deaths.