background: erythrocyte sedimentation rate (esr) is one of the predictors of improvement in handling rheumatoid arthritis. this study was designed to define and compare the time of achieving normal esr and also the percentage for the normalization of this marker at several points of time in two different combination therapies.methods: fifty-two rheumatoid arthritis patients randomly received me...

Few patients with Behçet’s syndrome have gastrointestinal ulceration. Such patients are diYcult to treat and have a higher mortality. Faced with refractory symptoms in two patients with intestinal Behçet’s, we used the tumour necrosis factor á (TNF-á) monoclonal antibody infliximab to induce remission. Both women (one aged 27 years, the other 30 years) presented with orogenital ulceration, pust...

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE Cyclosporine has been observed to precipitate cushingoid features in kidney transplant recipients already on prednisolone. Some pharmacokinetic studies have demonstrated increased prednisolone exposure in patients on cyclosporine therapy compared with azathioprine, whereas other studies have found no difference. The objective of this study was to determine whether cyclo...

OBJECTIVES In rheumatoid arthritis (RA), low-dose glucocorticoids (GCs) demonstrate disease-modifying potential when added to DMARDs. Modified-release (MR) prednisone taken at bedtime (released 2am) is more effective than immediate-release (IR) GC taken in the morning. METHODS In an open-label observational study, 950 RA outpatients (mean age 57 ± 13 years; 75% females) treated with GCs and D...

Osteoporosis is a metabolic bone disease characterized by low bone mass, impaired micro-architecture and susceptibility to fracture. Osteoporosis may be, inter alia, a result of a long-term glucocorticosteroid therapy, e.g. with prednisolone. Although a number of properties of prednisolone in influencing bone metabolism have been recognized, the effect of prednisolone-induced osteoporosis on th...