RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Disease modifying antirheumatic drugs: longterm safety issues.
JF The Journal of Rheumatology
JO J Rheumatol
FD The Journal of Rheumatology
SP 10
OP 15
VO 62
A1 H A Capell
YR 2001
UL http://www.jrheum.org/content/62/10.abstract
AB The trend for more aggressive management of rheumatoid arthritis includes earlier introduction of disease modifying antirheumatic drugs (DMARD). As patients may continue their therapy for several decades instead of several years, the evaluation of benefit versus risk of DMARD with particular emphasis on longterm safety is essential. Longterm safety assessment is difficult for a number of reasons: there are relatively few trials that have followed patients beyond 5 years and the use of a combination of DMARD therapy with nonsteroidal antiinflammatory drugs and corticosteroids complicates the assessment of an observed adverse event with a particular drug. This review of longterm studies incorporating DMARD provides insight into adverse events associated with currently available DMARD.