Innovative Therapies Help Children With Arthritis

Researchers at several children’s hospitals and research centers around the country together found that children with juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA) who receive aggressive therapy combined with a combination of medications as early as possible had their conditioned deemed ‘inactive’ faster than those with less aggressive therapies.

The study involved 85 children ages 2 to 17 with JIA who were used in the double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled study to compare 2 aggressive therapy approaches that might help them achieve ‘inactive disease’ status within 6 months. Researchers also looked at the possibility of helping children reach ‘clinical remission’ which is defined as 6 months of continuous clinical inactive JIA.

This was the first clinical trial to aim for patient status as ‘inactive disease’ and ‘clinical remission’ as research outcomes when comparing aggressive JIA treatments.

The 30 children in the most aggressive therapy group achieved clinical inactive disease status at least once. Researchers concluded that the aggressive therapy helped a large portion of children achieve clinical inactive disease status within 12 months. It also showed that combination drug therapy helped children maintain that status longer than just one drug therapy alone.

It is estimated that approximately 300,000 children in the USA are diagnosed with JIA, a condition that involves chronic joint inflammation, fevers, rash and eye inflammation.

Source

http://www.news-medical.net/news/20131028/Two-aggressive-therapy-approaches-effective-for-children-with-juvenile-idiopathic-arthritis.aspx

Related Article

Recent Research Findings Give Hope to Children With Autism