South London arthritis patients to be recruited in major national clinical trial
People in south London are to be recruited to take part in a major clinical trial into psoriatic arthritis, a form of arthritis which affects the joints and skin.
A team at Kings College London, led by Dr Gabrielle Kingsley and Professor David Scott, are conducting a national four-year trial being funded by a £334,862 grant from medical research charity the Arthritis Research Campaign (arc).
They will test the effectiveness of methotrexate, a drug which is already used to treat psoriatic arthritis but which hasn't been tested in a full clinical trial before. The trial is being conducted from King's College Hospital in Denmark Hill, and a variety of regional centres including Bath, Cardiff, Newcastle and Stoke.
Psoriatic arthritis is a combination of inflammatory arthritis and painful skin problems.
The late playwright Dennis Potter was a famous sufferer. Psoriasis occurs in between one and two per cent of the UK population, with up to 15 per cent of people with psoriasis also developing inflammatory arthritis.
"The drug methotrexate is already widely prescribed for all sorts of inflammatory arthritis but it doesn't have a licence in this country to be used for psoriatic arthritis," explained Dr Kingsley, who is heading up the trial.
"Some rheumatologists use it but others consider it to be too toxic. There is no evidence base for using methotrexate in psoriatic arthritis and what we want to do with this trial is provide that evidence base."
The Arthritis Research Campaign is the fourth biggest medical research charity in the UK and in the past 12 months raised more than £26m from public donations to fund its extensive research programme.
