Effect of glucocorticoids combined with disease modifying anti-rheumatic drugs on the improvement of symptoms in patients with rheumatoid arthritis

Abstract

Objectives: To explore the effect of glucocorticoids combined with disease modifying anti-rheumatic drugs in the treatment of symptoms in patients with rheumatoid arthritis. Methods: Medical records of patients with rheumatoid arthritis treated in the Rheumatology and Immunology Department of Yiwu Central Hospital from March 2020 to March 2021 were selected. A total of 38 patients were treated with disease modifying anti-rheumatic drugs Group-I and 44 patients were treated with disease modifying anti-rheumatic drugs and glucocorticoids Group-II. The symptom improvement of the two groups were compared and analyzed Serological indexes and adverse reactions. Results: Swollen joint counts (SJC), tender joint counts (TJC), rheumatoid arthritis disease activity evaluation form (DAS28) score, erythrocyte sedimentation rate, levels of ESR, C-reaction protein (CRP) and rheumatoid factor (RF) of Group-II patients were lower than those in Group-I (P<0.05). The adverse reaction rate in Group-II patients was 12.20%, which was similar to that of Group-I patients. There was no significant difference in 9.76% of the patients (P>0.05). Conclusion: The combination of glucocorticoids and disease modifying anti-rheumatic drugs in the treatment of patients with rheumatoid arthritis is safe can further improve their symptoms and serological indexes, and will not lead to increased adverse reactions. doi: https://doi.org/10.12669/pjms.38.4.5458 How to cite this:Si L, Jin Y, Zhao D, Yu L, Cao H. Effect of glucocorticoids combined with disease modifying anti-rheumatic drugs on the improvement of symptoms in patients with rheumatoid arthritis. Pak J Med Sci. 2022;38(4):---------. doi: https://doi.org/10.12669/pjms.38.4.5458 This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.