Doctors hail community-based arthritis treatment a success

A NEW pilot scheme to treat rheumatoid arthritis sufferers outside the hospital has been hailed as a success by doctors working in the field.

Currently most patients who receive expensive mono-clonal antibody treatments intravenously do so in hospitals, but a number of pilot schemes in the Dublin area have found that the drugs can be given efficiently, either in a GP’s surgery or a health centre, with intravenous infusion.

The results of a pilot project in a health clinic in Dundrum Town Centre has been published in The Irish Journal of Medical Science.

Its findings will be revealed at a major conference on arthritis which takes place at the Royal College of Surgeons in Dublin from this Friday, June 19th until Sunday, June 21st.

Arthritis in Motion will be opened by the Minister for Health and Children Mary Harney and the theme of the conference will concern what the medical profession is doing to ensure that arthritis sufferers can lead as full a life as possible.

An delegation of 200 Irish medical professionals across all disciplines are due to attend the meeting. The symposium will discuss developments in treatments for arthritis and the clinical management of arthritis in primary and secondary care.

According to Prof Doug Veale, from University College Dublin (UCD), the pilot project, which also shows promising returns for home treatment, is indicative of the advances in medicine which have made life much easier for arthritis sufferers.

“We know that the Minister [Mary Harney] is very supportive of us doing this. It shows that it is both safe and feasible to deliver these treatments in the community so patients don’t have to be dragged into hospital. It is a win, win situation for both the patient and the hospital,” he said.

Prof Veale said the past 10 years had shown “phenomenal” advances in treatment with the number of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) suffers who are now going into remission approaching half of all patients with the chronic illness.

Among the speakers at the conference will be Prof Andrew Cope from Kings College London who is involved with European Autocure, a promising project looking at the genetic susceptibility of patients to RA.

It is hoping to be able to identify people with a risk of getting RA. Early treatment is regarded as crucial in ensuring that the progress of the illness is arrested early.

Another prominent speaker will be Prof Gerry Wilson, an expert in pharmagenomics which identifies how people will respond to certain drugs.

Among the topics for discussion will be inflammatory arthritis, difficult and severe arthritis, osteoarthritis and co-morbidities in arthritis and eular highlights.