Abstract
Auranofin, an oral gold compound, was administered 3 mg twice daily to twenty-eight patients with classical rheumatoid arthritis (3 men, 25 women) who had developed undesirable reactions (mostly mucocutaneous in nature) against gold sodium thiomalate (GST: 24 cases) or D-penicillamine (D-Pc: 4 cases) during the previous 6 months. 19 cases (17 on GST and 2 on D-Pc previously) completed the full 24 weeks' study. Because of the recurrent dermatitis, five patients, 3 of whom had been on GST, were withdrawn from the trial during the initial eight weeks. Four other patients who had all taken GST previously, dropped out of the study because of intervention of other diseases (2 cases), failure to respond (one case) or not returned (one case) . Among the nineteen patients who had been on GST before and managed to take Auranofin over the initial 12 weeks, seven (36.8%) showed positive clinical response, while 3 (15.8%) deteriorated slightly. Those who had been managed substantially well by GST, seemed to have better prognostification to the following oral gold treatment. As for the D-Pc cases, no definite conclusion was reached, because very limited number of cases was available for the study.
