Course and Prognosis in Rheumatoid Arthritis: A Further Report

Clinical responses during gold therapy for rheumatoid arthritis. changes in synovitis, radiologically detectable erosive lesions, serum proteins, and serologic abnormalities

“…When large joint swelling scores were compared, there was a significant difference between those who achieved an excellent response and those who only partially responded, but the difference between those who achieved a remission and those who failed to respond was not significant (Table 6). No significant differences among groups were shown by analyses of other factors that have been assigned prognostic significance on the basis of previous studies (15)(16)(17)(18)(19)(20)(21). However, when 9 factors were ranked among the 3 groups for best prognosis, patients who had an excellent response ranked first for 7 of these 9 factors, and, similarly, those patients who failed to respond ranked third for 7 of the 9 (Table 7).…”

Human Leucocyte Antigen Phenotypes and Gold-Induced Remissions in Patients With Rheumatoid Arthritis

“…However, in the literature there is no support for the suggestion of disparity between the sexes in response to treatment with gold or other DMARDs [16, 31,32]. Therefore, instead of a differ ence in response to gold the high male percentage possibly reflects the conclusions of several studies that men with RA fare better than women with RA [33,34].…”

On Inflammation and Cardiovascular Disease in Patients with Rheumatoid Arthritis

“…Generally, hospital-based materials (26)(27)(28)(29)(30)(31)(32)(33)(34)(35)(36)(37)(38) reveal standardized mortality ratios (SMR) in the range of 1.3-2.5 but figures as high as 3.0 have been reported (39)(40). In population-based studies the excess death rates are somewhat lower (SMR 1.16-1.37), but still significantly higher than in controls (41,42), except for in one study (43).…”