Leading Leeds arthritis centre gets major cash boost
ARTHRITIS sufferers in Leeds are set to benefit from a massive cash boost of more than £1m to a group of doctors who are leading the way in pioneering early treatment.
Medical research charity the Arthritis Research Campaign has awarded Professor Paul Emery of the rheumatology and rehabilitation and research unit at Leeds University its biggest-ever programme grant of £748,808, to fund a co-ordinated programme for improving the outcome of very early inflammatory arthritis.
Three other related awards, to Professor Anne Chamberlain, Dr Michael Green and Dr Dennis McGonagle, also at Leeds University, bring the total to more than £1m.
The awards constitute recognition of Leeds as a major research centre for rheumatology. The Leeds doctors' research work is considered highly significant in producing exciting new and effective treatments with patients with the crippling condition of arthritis.
Professor Emery and his team, who have been running the early Arthritis Clinic at Leeds General Infirmary for the past four years, are currently providing a regime of rigorous early assessment for patients suffering from the crippling condition of rheumatoid arthritis, which affects around 600,000 people in the UK.
At the same time researchers are studying the success of this approach as part of the Leeds Early Arthritis Project (LEAP) and the Yorkshire Early Arthritis Register (YEAR).
The ARC awards will enable them to take their work further for another five years and to further establish Leeds as a leading national centre for rheumatology.
"Rheumatoid arthritis is common, and often leads to damaged joints and disability," explained Professor Emery. "Unfortunately, diagnosis and therapy are often delayed so that damage has already occurred when a patient is first seen by a doctor. This programme grant aims to improve the outcome of patients via a structured programme of early assessment and treatment."
Patients with early RA are now being seen straight after diagnosis at the Early Arthritis Clinic, and given special blood tests and scans to determine how badly they are likely to be affected. With the information gained from studying these patients, doctors will then be able to select patients who they expect to do badly for new, more intensive therapy.
Professor Emery described the work of Dr Dennis McGonagle, awarded a grant of £90,065, to run a pilot study of anti-cancer treatment for patients with severe RA, as "tremendously exciting". In the past the use of anti-cancer treatment on people with arthritis has worked, but its use is limited because of damage to the bone marrow.
Dr McGonagle plans to use periphereral blood stem cell transplantation to remove lymphocytes and stem cells – which make a complete blood and immune system from scratch – from the blood before the anti-cancer treatment, and given back to the patient afterwards, to overcome bone-marrow damage.
Leeds is the European Bone Marrow Transplant Centre for high dose immunosuppression and stem cell rescue. The project has enormous potential for improving the treatment of patients with severe RA.
Dr Green's research, backed by an ARC grant of £119,027 is equally significant. He and his team are to recruit 150 patients with oligoarthritis – a very common form of arthritis which affects only a few joints – to take part in a clinical which in the long-term will lead to the development of management guidelines for its successful treatment.
The study will evaluate the use of steroid injections into all the inflamed joints. Patients will also undergo regular ultrasound to check the progression of their condition, and will be followed up for at least 12 months after the end of the trial.
In yet another strand of research, Professor Anne Chamberlain and research physiotherapist at St James's Hospital Gill Gilworth will be looking for ways to improve the poor work prospects of patients with RA. As many as 15 per cent of people with RA lose their jobs within 12 months of onset, and many more within the next 24 months.
"We want to identify problems associated with work disability in RA, so that the disease can be managed to reduce the risk of patients losing their job,"explained Mrs Gilworth.
