Hello sick-ga
From the nature of the question, I would imagine that you know
something of the desease itself, so I will move straight to the
answer.
1. Number of sufferers
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The number of people who reportedly suffer from Rheumatoid Arthritis
in the US was around 2.1 million people. Interestingly and something I
did not know is that there are two-three times as many women that
suffer from the complaint as there are men.
OHSU Health
http://www.ohsuhealth.com/dch/health/arthritis/stats.asp
However, this information seemed to be dated so after checking around
it would appear that latest findings put the figure at around 7
million Americans
Arthritis Library Weekly
http://arthritis.about.com/library/weekly/aa072298.htm
2. Number of sufferers on medication
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Because of the nature of the problem and the amount of pain that it
causes, from my research it would appear that in practically all cases
where RA is diagnosed, treatment is prescribed.
So the number of sufferers on medication will not differ greatly from
the figure of reported cases.
3. Breakdown of Drugs
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There are several different groups of drugs that are used and
combinations of different ones are prescribed on a patient by patient
basis.
The main groups are.
NSAIDS (Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs)
DMARDS (disease modifying anti-rheumatic drugs) are also known as
SAARDS (slow acting anti rheumatic drugs.
Steroids
Methotrexate is reportedly the most common treatment with reportedly
15% of the 7 million reported cases being "candidates" for this
treatment. The problem is the main side effect that this particular
drug causes which is stomach upsets.
Arthritis Library Weekly
http://arthritis.about.com/library/weekly/aa072298.htm
but there are also;
hydroxychloroquine
sulfasalzine
corticosteroids
intramuscular
oral gold
d-penicillamine
minocycline
azathioprine
cyclosporine
This information was obtained from the following site, which has a lot
more information that you may find interesting with regards to
alternative treatment and medications available.
MARRTC
http://www.muhealth.org/~arthritis/ra/faqs.html
As far as breaking them down by percentage, this would be impossible
since many suffers take a combination of the drugs and their doctors,
frequently change the medication depending on the side effects and
success that each prescription brings. Therefore, since most sufferers
will be on a combination of more than one of the above listed drugs,
it would be a very inaccurate list.
Through my reserach to answer this question it became clear that
because there is no cure for RA at the moment, research is very much
ongoing into the best way to treat the disease. This means that
prescriptions are changed very frequently and the search for an
overall cure is not helped by the fact that it affects different
people in different ways as do the treatments.
Some find that a certain drug works and eases the symptoms, whereas
others experience no change only side effects from the medication.
I hope that this helps and has answered your question sufficiently.
Please do not hesitate to ask for a question clarification before
rating the answer if I can be of further assistance.
Additional Links
****************
Research Into Rheumatoid Arthritis
http://www.arthritis.about.com/cs/raresearch/index.htm
Hayfever Cure?
http://arthritis.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?site=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.pslgroup.com%2Fdg%2F8fec2.htm
Centre for Rural Health Research and Education - CRHRE
http://www.health.uwyo.edu/AtoZ.asp
(this is a very good page with a veritable plethora of links to
further information)
Search Strategy
***************
"Rheumatoid Arhritis" "Statistics" "Medication" "Sufferers" "Most
Common Treatment" "Treatment Statistics" "Most Common Medication"
I Hope this Helps,
Johnny Phoenix |
