Article Text
Statistics from Altmetric.com
In a recent paper in the Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases, Furst et al proposed preliminary consensus guidelines, elaborated during the “Advances in targeted therapies IV” meeting 2002, for diagnosis and treating latent tuberculosis in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) treated with tumour necrosis factor (TNF) blockers.1 Such guidelines cannot be universal and must take into account the prevalence of tuberculosis, the type of immigrants, and the prevalence of vaccination with BCG (bacille Calmette-Guerin) in the country where they are proposed. A multidisciplinary French cooperative group termed RATIO (Recherche sur Anti-TNF et Infections Opportunistes), including specialists in infectious diseases, pneumology, gastroenterology, and rheumatology, recently proposed such guidelines adapted for France,2 which have been validated by the French agency for healthcare product safety (AFSSAPS). These guidelines are intended to help doctors detect and manage tuberculosis in their patients before and after TNF blocker therapy. Moreover, they are now mandatory for all doctors and have to be implemented …