[Combination therapy in chronic polyarthritis]

Long-term effects of disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs are not at all satisfactory. Therefore combinations of different substances have long been studied. But no convincing recommendations could be derived from those results. Some combinations seem to be more effective than the single substances, but often have more side-effects. First of all, those types of rheumatoid arthritis must be defined which require an aggressive therapy. These may profit from combinations with sulfasalazine, methotrexate or azathioprine. But such questions may only be answered by long-term studies which can be statistically evaluated.