Prospects for rheumatoid arthritis pharmacotherapy: New opportunities and recommendations

Abstract

The paper considers a current strategy, international and Russian recommendations for the pharmacotherapy of rheumatoid arthritis (RA), one of the most common and severe human immune-mediated inflammatory diseases. It emphasizes the need for early diagnosis and therapy with disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs, primarily methotrexate (MT), starting at the onset of the disease, and careful monitoring of therapeutic effectiveness, allowing RA remission to be achieved with a treatment-to-target strategy. The author discusses recent RA pharmacotherapy advances that are related to the rational use of MT, biological agents, and the new targeted JAK inhibitor tofacitinib.