[The treatment of juvenile rheumatism: pharmacotherapy]

The treatment of juvenile idiopathic arthritis has changed a great deal in the last few years. Pharmacomedical treatment, physiotherapy and teaching the patients and parents are the mainstays of successful therapy. Using all available treatment options and thanks to new therapeutic options (TNFalpha-blockade) and due to a better understanding of the pathogenesis, individual therapeutic strategies provide adequate disease control in the large majority of cases. According to the subtype of juvenile idiopathic arthritis, different medications are used in combination with nonsteroidal antiinflammatory drugs (NSAID) which are used initially. Methotrexate (MTX) and steroids in various applications are the drugs of choice for the systemic and polyarticular courses; intraarticular steroids, sulfasalazine and hydroxychloroquine for the oligoarticular subtype. The new option of TNFalpha-blockade (Etanercept, Infliximab, Adalimumab) offers significant clinical benefit in patients with polyarticular involvement, who do not respond to MTX. Further biological agents (Anakinra, Abatacept, Atlizumab) are used in children and adolescents in clinical studies. Rarely azathioprine, cyclosporine A, leflunomide and cyclophosphamide are used. Stem cell transplantation has been tried as a very last resort but interpretation of the results is controversial. Due to the improvement of the therapeutic options, the approaches to the patients and their disease has changed and cautious optimism is justified.