Rheumatology Advance Access published online on March 11, 2008
Rheumatology, doi:10.1093/rheumatology/ken055
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© The Author 2008. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the British Society for Rheumatology. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org
Editorial |
Improving the evidence base for treatment of juvenile idiopathic arthritis: the challenge and opportunity facing the MCRN/ARC Paediatric Rheumatology Clinical Studies Group
1Greater Manchester, Lancashire and South Cumbria Medicines for Children Research Network, Royal Manchester Children's Hospital, Pendlebury, Manchester M27 4HA, 2Medicines for Children Research Network/Arthritis Research Campaign Paediatric Rheumatology Clinical Studies Group, University of Liverpool Division of Child Health, Royal Liverpool Children's Hospital, Alder Hey, Liverpool L12 2AP and 3Department of Child Health and Paediatric Endocrinology, University of Manchester, Manchester, UK
Correspondence to:
J. Thornton, Greater Manchester, Lancashire and South Cumbria Medicines for Children Research Network, 2nd floor, Colwyn House, Royal Manchester Children's Hospital, Pendlebury, Manchester M27 4HA, UK. E-mail: judith.thornton@cmmc.nhs.uk
| The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below. |
One of the greatest challenges facing paediatric rheumatologists in the care of children with complex, unusual, chronic, auto-immune, often multi-system diseases is the striking paucity of a rigorous evidence base for their treatment. Juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA) is the commonest among such conditions and has been the predominant focus of clinical research to-date. In the past decade, there have been significant advances in therapy with the development of new treatments including biologic disease-modifying agents, which have resulted in significant changes in its management. Despite this, there is very little evidence upon which therapy of children with JIA can be based [1].
A recent systematic review of controlled studies in JIA identified only 34 relevant studies conducted across all JIA subtypes and all pharmacological interventions, but excluded management of uveitis [2]. There were 14 studies of all non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) 13 studies of DMARDs with only