PMID- 12959625
OWN - NLM
STAT- MEDLINE
DCOM- 20031112
LR  - 20181113
IS  - 1170-7690 (Print)
IS  - 1170-7690 (Linking)
VI  - 21
IP  - 13
DP  - 2003
TI  - Quality of life in patients with rheumatoid arthritis : which drugs might make a 
      difference?
PG  - 927-40
AB  - Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a chronic, disabling, inflammatory polyarthritis 
      that affects patient well-being and QOL. Many disease-modifying antirheumatic 
      drugs (DMARDs) are available for treating RA but patients are often refractory to 
      treatment. The goal of treatment is to improve both general health and 
      health-related QOL. Generic and disease-specific instruments exist to measure 
      QOL. Using these instruments, one can determine if QOL improves with treatment. 
      If the minimal clinically important difference (MCID) for the instrument is 
      known, one can determine if the change is clinically significant. The literature 
      was reviewed in a systematic manner to determine which drugs could affect QOL in 
      patients with refractory RA. Refractory RA is poorly defined but we used the 
      definition of failing at least two DMARDs. Methotrexate, leflunomide, 
      cyclosporin, glucocorticoids, etanercept and infliximab clinically and 
      statistically significantly improved QOL in patients with RA. Gold and 
      epoetin-alpha (erythropoietin) statistically improved QOL in patients with RA but 
      the clinical significance of the improvements could not be determined. These 
      studies were either in non-refractory populations or the refractoriness could not 
      be determined. Further study is required to determine the response of QOL to 
      treatment in patients with refractory RA and instruments with known MCIDs should 
      be used so that the clinical significance of the improvement can be determined.
FAU - Blumenauer, Barbara
AU  - Blumenauer B
AD  - Ottawa Hospital, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.
FAU - Cranney, Ann
AU  - Cranney A
FAU - Clinch, Jennifer
AU  - Clinch J
FAU - Tugwell, Peter
AU  - Tugwell P
LA  - eng
PT  - Journal Article
PT  - Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
PT  - Review
PL  - New Zealand
TA  - Pharmacoeconomics
JT  - PharmacoEconomics
JID - 9212404
RN  - 0 (Anti-Inflammatory Agents, Non-Steroidal)
RN  - 0 (Antirheumatic Agents)
MH  - Anti-Inflammatory Agents, Non-Steroidal/*therapeutic use
MH  - Antirheumatic Agents/*therapeutic use
MH  - Arthritis, Rheumatoid/*drug therapy/*psychology
MH  - Humans
MH  - *Quality of Life
RF  - 28
EDAT- 2003/09/10 05:00
MHDA- 2003/11/13 05:00
CRDT- 2003/09/10 05:00
PHST- 2003/09/10 05:00 [pubmed]
PHST- 2003/11/13 05:00 [medline]
PHST- 2003/09/10 05:00 [entrez]
AID - 21132 [pii]
AID - 10.2165/00019053-200321130-00002 [doi]
PST - ppublish
SO  - Pharmacoeconomics. 2003;21(13):927-40. doi: 10.2165/00019053-200321130-00002.