Access to disease modifying treatments for rheumatoid arthritis patients

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Abstract
Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a severe disease that leads to joint destruction, loss of quality of life, work disability and premature mortality, as well as significant costs to the patient and to the health care system. Although effective therapeutic regimens are currently available, many patients fail to respond to these treatments, fail to sustain an initial response, or suffer from significant toxicity necessitating withdrawal of treatment. Moreover, remission is rare and curative treatment unknown. It is clear, therefore, that new treatments are needed. Patients and doctors wish the best possible treatment to be prescribed for RA. The highest responsibility of doctors is that towards their patients. However, in an environment of increasing costs for medical care, doctors must also be cognisant of issues related to the costs of newly available treatments. In this context, it is helpful to establish a consensus of worldwide experts for the rational and successful use of such new therapeutic agents, even though such a consensus is provisional and will change as new data become available. The newly developed disease modifying anti-rheumatic treatments seem to be a significant advance in the therapeutic armamentarium for RA. The presently available evidence shows that these …

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