Successful treatment of juvenile chronic arthritis with a specific antiviral agent

In a previous paper we identified a group of patients with teenage onset chronic progressive arthritis (JCA or JRA) with raised antibody titres to influenza A (H2N2), an epidemic of which was present in the year they were born. On the basis that they might be chronic carriers of influenza A, and that this might be related to their arthropathy, it was decided to use the anti-influenza A drug amantadine to treat the virus and observe whether there was any effect on the joint disease. A 4-month, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial followed by a 4-month open study showed that amantadine could under these circumstances be of considerable therapeutic benefit while having no effect on patients without elevated antibody titres against influenza A.