A Picture of Health was recently published by the Health Research Board (HRB).
A Picture of Health was recently published by the Health Research Board (HRB), Ireland’s lead agency supporting and funding health research with an investment portfolio of €160 million. It showcases the most recent breakthroughs in health research from five third level institutions and eight hospitals throughout the island of Ireland.
Among the researchers featured from UCD is a group from the Department of Rheumatology at St Vincent’s University Hospital. They are combining laboratory and clinical studies to improve their understanding of Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA) and to offer new hope to the one to two per cent of the Irish population suffering from this painful condition.
New therapies which block the pro-inflammatory protein TNF (Anti-TNF drugs) are expensive, hard to administer for the patient and their long-term effects are not known, but they have been used in Ireland since 1999 in patients who have failed to respond to another disease-modifying drug called methotrexate. While anti-TNF drugs are still not used as first-line therapy because they are too expensive, they are being introduced earlier in the disease to slow down its progress.
Dr Ceara Walsh of the Department of Rheumatology at St Vincent’s University Hospital carried out an audit of the first 300 patients to receive anti-TNF therapy and found that 20 to 30 per cent experienced complete remission of the disease. The rest fell into one of two groups: either they responded but continued to have some low-grade disease activity, or they failed to respond at all or relapsed after an initial response.
Out of a group of 21 patients, eleven had their therapy withdrawn and the rest continued to take it. The eleven were followed up for six months and all but one stayed off their treatment. Dr. Walsh hopes this research will lead to smarter prescription of anti-TNF therapies with fewer problems for patients.
