Arthritis Drug found Effective in Treating Rare Rheumatic Conditions
New research has revealed that a common drug, usually used for the treatment of arthritis, also has effective health benefits for treating other rare rheumatic conditions.
Rheumatic conditions are autoimmune and inflammatory diseases that act against a person’s defence system by attacking healthy cells and tissues, causing immense pain and damage to the joints, muscles, bones, and organs including the heart, eyes and lungs.1
Around 10 million people in the UK are living with a form of arthritis1, while over 52.5 million US adults have also developed a rheumatic condition2, highlighting the staggering amount of people that this new form of treatment could benefit. The drug has been suggested to replace steroid medication for rheumatic conditions such as Giant Cell Arteritis (GCA) and Polymyalgia Rheumatica (PMR), which often introduce severe side effects, such as diabetes and osteoporosis. An international trial of the treatment found that more than half of patients with GCA were able to come off steroids after 12 months, resulting in an improvement in their overall health.
Professor Bhaskar Dasgupta, consultant rheumatologist at Southend University Hospital in Essex, explained how:
‘This is exciting news and a major breakthrough. It will hopefully mean patients won’t have to take long-term steroids.’3
For over 30 years, Randox Biosciences have been developing and manufacturing polyclonal and monoclonal antibodies, proteins and fragments (sdAb, scFv, Fab) for use in Randox diagnostic kits including our proprietary Biochip Array Technology and ELISA testing kits.
We offer a wide range of inflammatory cytokine markers including:
- Interleukin 17 (IL-17)
- Interferon γ (IFNγ)
- Tumour necrosis factor α (Tnfα)
- Granulocyte macrophage colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF)
Using some of our raw materials, we have also developed cytokine arrays* that are utilised on our award-winning Biochip Array Technology. As cytokines play a central role in the immune system and are involved in a variety of immunological, inflammatory and infectious diseases, they have been linked to many disease states including autoimmune conditions.
We offer a comprehensive menu of cytokines, cytokine receptors and growth factors, over 5 multi-analyte arrays. The combination of highly specific antibodies and advanced chemistries enables up to 12 cytokines and growth factors to be detected simultaneously in a single sample. This provides valuable information relating to each cytokine under test and possible associations between cytokines in each sample, resulting in a complete patient profile to enable an accurate diagnosis.
Would you like more information on our capabilities? Email us at info@randoxbiosciences.com
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1-British Society for Rheumatology
2- American College of Rheumatology
3-Daily Mail
*for research use only