Biological agents for the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis_Is it good to take biological agents for rheumatoid arthritis

Rheumatoid arthritis is very difficult to cure, and when it occurs, the patient will feel special pain. Generally, the probability of the patient's disease will be greatly increased in rainy weather. Most rheumatoid arthritis patients are particularly afraid of winter, because in winter, they will feel very cold and have to wear a lot of clothes. So what are the biological agents that can treat rheumatoid arthritis?

Biological agents are a treatment method that has only been gradually widely used in the field of rheumatology and immunology in recent decades. Although there have been many large-scale clinical studies in the medical field, biological agents are still mysterious and aloof to patients.

In daily communication with patients, people are often both yearning for and worried about this expensive drug, and have many doubts to varying degrees. Today we will take rheumatoid arthritis (RA) as the starting point and discuss with you the pros and cons of biological agents.

RA is an autoimmune inflammatory disease with chronic, symmetrical, polyarticular synovitis and extra-articular lesions as its main clinical manifestations. It is more common in women and the cause is still unclear. Clinically, it can affect multiple joints such as the hands, feet, wrists, palms, elbows and knees. In the early stages, it is often manifested as stiffness, swelling and pain in the joints in the morning. In the late stages, it can even destroy bones and cartilage, leading to joint deformities and disability. In addition, some patients will also affect multiple systems such as the heart, lungs, liver, and kidneys, seriously affecting their quality of daily life.

RA is known as the "immortal cancer" because of its difficult-to-treat nature. However, in addition to the pain of the disease, patients are also tormented by the psychological burden of taking long-term medication to overcome the pain and some adverse reactions caused by these drugs. Traditional DMARDs, which are usually referred to as methotrexate, leflunomide and other drugs, often have varying degrees of drug side effects such as bone marrow suppression, gonad suppression, and infection. However, with the in-depth study of the pathogenesis of RA, the emergence of biological agents targeting cytokines has opened a new chapter in the field of rheumatic immunotherapy due to its rapid anti-inflammatory effect and fewer adverse reactions.

Currently, there are two main types of biological agents used in the treatment of RA, tumor necrosis factor antagonists and IL6 factor antagonists, including infliximab (Remicade), adalimumab (Humira), etanercept (Enbrel), recombinant human type II tumor necrosis factor receptor antibody fusion protein (Esaipu, Enbrel), tocilizumab (Acemira), etc. Currently, many biological agents are participating in charitable aid activities of charitable foundations, which to some extent alleviates the financial pressure on patients.

Clinical trials have confirmed that traditional DMARDs can achieve a clinical remission rate of 22%-26% per year in the treatment of RA, and a sustained clinical remission rate of approximately 11% within 5 years. However, 16.7% of patients with sustained remission still experience progression of radiographic damage. For patients with early RA, the combination of traditional DMARDs and biological agents can not only effectively control joint inflammation, but also significantly reduce the rate of work disability within 2 years.