[Measurement of inflammatory activity in chronic rheumatism by blood pretein levels]

Seventy six patients with chronic inflammatory rheumatism were treated with various non-steroid anti-inflammatory drugs for 5 to 7 days. The average variations of several serum proteins were studied. The variation of haptoglobin remained nil. Those of other serum proteins remained negative and significantly different from zero, distributed from the greatest to the smallest value of the degree of statistical significance as follow : ceruloplasmin (p < 0.0001), orosomucoide (p < 0.02), fibrinogen (p < 0.02) alpha-2-macroglobulin (p < 0.04) and alpha-1-antitrypsin (p < 0.05). The study of the partial results showed the variability of the degree of significance of the serum proteins in relation to the non-steroid anti-inflammatory drugs. The practical interest of these serum protein seemed low to measure in the short term, the efficacy of non-steroid anti-inflammatory drugs. Their interest in long term studies remains to be demonstrated compared with that of the measurement of the sedimentation rate by the technic of the sigma E.S.R.