Macclesfield arthritis patients to take part in national steroid trial
PEOPLE in Macclesfield who suffer from painful joint inflammation are to be given the chance to take part in a major UK-wide clinical trial aimed at stopping the condition from developing into arthritis.
Professor Deborah Symmons and Dr Susan Knight, both consultant rheumatologists at Macclesfield District General Hospital, hope to establish the effectiveness of giving patients a course of steroid injections within the first few weeks of their developing joint inflammation.
The two doctors are working closely with local GPs to make sure that patients who visit them with joint pain are fast-tracked into specialist clinics as early as possible.
Although many people who develop inflamed and swollen joints are likely to be diagnosed as having a serious, inflammatory form of arthritis such as rheumatoid arthritis, in others the pain and swelling will subside after a month or two.
"For some people who develop this type of self-limiting arthritis - where the joint is warm, tender and swollen - it is very often short-lived," explained Professor Symmons, who is leading the four-year £396,870 trial, funded by the Arthritis Research Campaign.
"Of those who develop joint inflammation for the first time today, for example, at least 75 per cent will be better within a month, and at three months there is around a 50 per cent chance it will resolve. However, the longer it goes on, the less likely it is to clear up."
Patients who are recruited onto the trial - around 350 in the country and a dozen in Macclesfield - will then be split into two groups. One group will receive steroid injections into the muscles on three consecutive weeks, and the others will have placebo (dummy) injections. If their arthritis fails to clear up after three months they will then start on the usual medication for inflammatory arthritis.
"In normal circumstances, the body's immune system switches off the inflammatory process of arthritis which is why joint inflammation subsides in most people," added Professor Symmons. "One reason why it doesn't subside, and becomes chronic, may be because the body does not produce enough steroid to switch off the inflammation.
"The amount of steroid production is under genetic control and that may explain whey arthritis runs in some families. The injections will supplement the body's steroid production and hopefully help the arthritis to clear up."
