The past and present of rheumatoid arthritis diagnosis and treatment

To overcome it, you must first understand it

Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is an autoimmune disease with erosive joint damage as the main clinical manifestation, which can occur at any age; its basic pathological manifestations are joint synovitis, pannus formation, etc.

RA does not only affect the joints, but can also be complicated by lung damage, cardiovascular disease, malignant tumors, and depression

Let's start with the name of RA~

As early as the 3rd century BC, the word rheumatism (rheuma) appeared in the ancient Greek "Complete Works of Hippocrates", which means "flow", reflecting the initial speculation on the etiology of rheumatism, the famous "humor theory".

In 1570, the French physician Cuillaume Baillou first used "rheumatism" to name "rheumatism", thinking that rheumatism is a group of independent systemic musculoskeletal diseases

In 1630, the famous European Renaissance painter Rubens suffered from RA.

In 1966, the American College of Rheumatology formally named two separate disease types: RA and ankylosing spondylitis (AS)

Evolution of diagnostic criteria for RA

The diagnosis of RA mainly depends on clinical manifestations, laboratory and imaging examinations

Clinically, patients with RA have significant heterogeneity

Table 1.

In order to achieve early diagnosis and early treatment of RA to better control the disease, the classification criteria of RA are constantly being updated

Table 2 RA classification criteria in 2009

Choice of RA treatment drugs

Drugs for the treatment of RA mainly fall into the following categories:

Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs: representative drugs include diclofenac sodium, ibuprofen, meloxicam, celecoxib,

Glucocorticoids: The application of small doses and short courses of treatment can significantly improve the symptoms of joint swelling and pain, with rapid onset, but cannot block the progression of RA and joint destruction

Disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs (DMARDs): There are three types of DMARDs, namely traditional synthetic DMARDs (csDMARDs), biological DMARDs (bDMARDs) and targeted synthetic DMARDs (tsDMARDs)

Epilogue

As our research on RA continues to deepen, its diagnosis and treatment strategies are also constantly updated, and many innovative drugs have emerged