Home > Arthritis News > 2006 Effectiveness of Combination Therapy vs. Monotherapy with Etanercept or Infliximab in Real-World Clinical Practice Efficacy studies of TNF inhibitors in rheumatoid arthritis (RA), such as TEMPO, have shown that initial therapy with a TNF inhibitor + methotrexate combination is superior to either drug used as monotherapy. However, in clinical [...]

Home > Arthritis News > 2006 Effect of Muscle-Derived Stem Cells on Cartilage Repair Articular cartilage possesses little ability for healing, leading to progressive destruction and eventually osteoarthritis in the setting of sustained injury. Current methods to repair damaged articular cartilage, including transplants of cartilage and bone, have had limited success due to a lack [...]

Home > Arthritis News > 2006 Interaction of environment, genetics and autoimmunity in the pathogenesis of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) Cigarette smoking and a genetic marker, the HLA-DR shared epitope, have been consistently identified as risk factors for the development of RA (see 2004 news summary). In recent years, the presence of antibodies against citrullinated peptides [...]

Home > Arthritis News > 2006 Rituximab Receives FDA Approval for Treatment of Rheumatoid Arthritis The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has now approved rituximab (Rituxan®) in combination with methotrexate for the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) in patients with moderate to severe rheumatoid arthritis who have had an inadequate response to one or more [...]

Home > Arthritis News > 2006 Sleep Disturbance is Increased in Rheumatoid Arthritis Sleep quality has a profound affect on pain perception and mood, and poor sleep itself may affect immune function by increasing allostatic load.  All of these effects may relate to the RA disease process.  However, little investigation into sleep disturbance has been [...]