Medical practice and issues of rheumatoid arthritis from the viewpoint of big database research

Abstract

Treatment for rheumatoid arthritis has been greatly improved in these twenty years though development of new classes of drugs such as biological and target specific disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs, new classification criteria, aiming tight disease control, and stringent treatment strategy. These improvements brought about actual large positive impacts on daily practice. Reports of analyses of large volume data from institutions specialized in rheumatology have demonstrated the great improvement of patients’ conditions in disease activity and physical function. On the other hand, rheumatologists sometimes encounter patients who have not enjoyed these benefits. Ploblems to solve to provide better quality of life to patients could be revealed by understanding results both from specialized institutions and those from the National Database of Japan.