Arthritis and rheumatism
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Arthritis and rheumatism · Aug 2006
Rates of serious infection, including site-specific and bacterial intracellular infection, in rheumatoid arthritis patients receiving anti-tumor necrosis factor therapy: results from the British Society for Rheumatology Biologics Register.
To determine whether the rate of serious infection is higher in anti-tumor necrosis factor (anti-TNF)-treated rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients compared with RA patients treated with traditional disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs (DMARDs). ⋯ In patients with active RA, anti-TNF therapy was not associated with increased risk of overall serious infection compared with DMARD treatment, after adjustment for baseline risk. In contrast, the rate of serious skin and soft tissue infections was increased, suggesting an important physiologic role of TNF in host defense in the skin and soft tissues beyond that in other tissues.
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Arthritis and rheumatism · Aug 2006
Modeling of tumor necrosis factor receptor superfamily 1A mutants associated with tumor necrosis factor receptor-associated periodic syndrome indicates misfolding consistent with abnormal function.
To investigate the effect of mutations in the tumor necrosis factor receptor superfamily 1A (TNFRSF1A) gene on the conformation and behavior of the TNFRSF1A protein. Mutations in TNFRSF1A cause the autosomal-dominant, autoinflammatory TNFR-associated periodic syndrome (TRAPS). ⋯ The results obtained from the in vitro experiments, in combination with the modeled structures, indicate that the phenotype and clinical differences between different TRAPS-associated mutants of TNFRSF1A result from different conformations of the TNFRSF1A ectodomains.
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Arthritis and rheumatism · Aug 2006
Reduced levels of antiinflammatory cytokines in patients with chronic widespread pain.
The term chronic widespread pain refers to a group of painful diseases of poorly understood pathophysiology. One major subgroup is fibromyalgia (FM), as defined by the criteria of the American College of Rheumatology. Among other hypotheses, a potential pathophysiologic role of cytokines in chronic widespread pain has been proposed. We undertook this study to investigate whether cytokine profiles differ in patients with chronic widespread pain and controls. ⋯ Chronic widespread pain is associated with a lack of antiinflammatory and analgesic Th2 cytokine activity, which may contribute to its pathogenesis.