© 2002 by Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases
LEADER
Rheumatoid arthritis
Newly diagnosed rheumatoid arthritis
Division of Rheumatology, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center; UCLA School of Medicine
Correspondence to:
Correspondence to:
Dr M H Weisman, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Division of Rheumatology, 8700 Beverly Blvd Suite B-131, Los Angeles, CA 90048, USA;
weisman@cshs.org
We can now affect the natural history of RA
Keywords: early rheumatoid arthritis; referral; early arthritis clinics
Although the concept would sound heretical in some quarters, rheumatoid arthritis (RA) may now be a treatable disease. The aphorism of 25 years ago that "we don't treat RA, we manage the patient with the disease" may no longer be operative. Emery and colleagues in this issue of the Annals have made a recommendation (called a "clinical guide") for how and when primary care physicians can identify patients with suspected RA and refer them to a rheumatology specialist.1 They state, unequivocally, that the initiation of disease modifying antirheumatic drugs (DMARDs) very early in the course of RA will improve patient outcome and increase long term quality of life. Their paper makes a compelling argument in favour of this recommendation; however, several issues dealt with in the article do raise questions that are in need of additional data and clarification.
The approach of Emery et al was to perform
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