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Rheumatology 2000; 39: 34-42
© 2000 British Society for Rheumatology

Disease-modifying anti-rheumatic drug use according to the `sawtooth' treatment strategy improves the functional outcome in rheumatoid arthritis: results of a long-term follow-up study with review of the literature

T. Sokka, T. Möttönen1 and P. Hannonen

Department of Medicine, Jyväskylä Central Hospital, Jyväskylä and
1 Turku University Central Hospital, Turku, Finland

Correspondence to: T. Sokka, Department of Medicine, Central Hospital, FIN-40620 Jyväskylä, Finland.

Objectives. To investigate long-term functional outcomes of early rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients treated actively with disease-modifying anti-rheumatic drugs (DMARDs) from diagnosis, according to the `sawtooth' principle, and to compare the results to historical data.

Methods. The surviving 46 and 65 patients from two early RA cohorts were examined on average 13.0 (cohort 1) and 8.5 (cohort 2) yr, respectively, after onset of disease. Functional outcome was measured by the Health Assessment Questionnaire (HAQ) and compared with the HAQ scores of 57 RA patient cohorts found through a Medline computer search.

Results. The respective cross-sectional mean HAQ scores of cohorts 1 and 2 were 0.75 and 0.55, and were more favourable than the mean HAQ scores of 1.27 (27 cohorts, disease duration >10 yr) and 1.13 (13 cohorts, disease duration 5–10 yr) of the comparator cohorts. The median time that our patients were treated with DMARDs out of the total follow-up period was 88%, while in the majority of comparator cohorts the use of DMARDs was less extensive or poorly described.

Conclusions. The observation of better preserved function in patients with RA over 13 and 8.5 yr, compared to earlier reports which indicated more severe declines, is a hopeful sign for the rheumatology community.

KEY WORDS: Rheumatoid arthritis, Functional capacity, Health Assessment Questionnaire, Early RA, Long-term outcome


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