[Innovative technologies in the complex treatment of patients with rheumatoid arthritis]

The treatment of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) remains a difficult task since the current therapy does not always result in the disease remission. The search for and development of new methods and principles for the complex therapy of RA have been underway. 144 RA patients aged 22 to 65, disease duration--72.4 +/- 7.3 months, have been investigated. A majority of them (62.3%) had stage 2 RA, and 77.4% had RA stages 2-3. The patients who were taking methotrixate for 5 years were found to respond better and longer to the traditional-therapy drugs versus drugs of other basic groups. An intensification of treatment (by methilprednizolone combined with cyclophosphamide) in a group of stage 1 RA patients) improperly responding to the therapy (resulted in a disease remission for as long as 2.5 months. An intensification of therapy in stage 2 RA (by cyclophosphamide, vincristin and prednizolone) entailed a 13.2-month remission in 23 patients. A big number of contraindications restrict the use of such intense therapy which should be replaced, in such cases, by anticytokine drugs. Remission and improvements were ensured after remicade in 4 and 2 of 7 RA patients respectively. DMARS provided a significantly lower RA intensity that lasted, however, only for 2 weeks, which necessitates further research related with higher drug's doses and with extending its effect. Stem-cells transplantations were used in RA, after which remission and improvements were observed in 80% of patients.