Active clinical trials for "Arthritis"

The purpose of the study is to determine whether plasma levels of the collagen triple helix repeat containing (CTHRC1) protein can serve as a blood-based biomarker for diagnosis of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) ,and furthermore its correlation with disease activity

The purpose of this study will establish total joint arthroplasty registry database in Kaohsiung Chang Gung Memorial Hospital and collect patient-reported outcome.

The purpose of the study is to determine whether plasma levels of the collagen triple helix repeat containing (CTHRC1) protein can serve as a blood-based biomarker for diagnosis of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) ,and furthermore its correlation with disease activity.

This research will help doctors interested in the usefulness of a new test to discover hidden tuberculosis infections in patients diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis (RA). This new test is called Quantiferon-Gold (QFT-G). After immune system medicines that block TNF-alpha (a protein manufactured by white blood cells to stimulate and activate the immune system in response to infection or cancer) started to be used, the rate of tuberculosis infections in patients treated with these medicines has increased. Doctors think that the investigators may be missing some tuberculosis infections that were hidden before the medicine is started. This new QFT-G test might better diagnose these hidden tuberculosis infections than the current tuberculosis skin test, also known as a PPD/TST. The investigators would like to compare these two tests to find out which is better at detecting these hidden infections. At the same time the investigators will measure the strength of the patient's immune system with a blood test. If you are being considered for a TNF-alpha inhibitor medicine, or are getting the patient's routine PPD/TST, the investigators are asking for the patient's participation.

There are very few data on the safety of Biologic Disease Modifying Anti-Rheumatic Drugs (bDMARDs), especially abatacept which compared to Tumor Necrosis Factor α (TNFα) inhibitors has distinct mechanism of action. Abatacept is a recombinant fusion protein of human Cytotoxic T-Lymphocyte Antigen 4 (CTLA-4) and the Fc region of human immunoglobulin gamma-1 (IgG1). This CTLA4-fusion protein blocks the signal of T cell activation by binding to CD80 and CD86. Recently, the investigator's study found in a US cohort of 64,000 patients with Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA) a potential signal for a higher risk of cancer overall and particularly non-melanoma skin cancer with abatacept compared to other bDMARDs (article in press). These results were in accordance with another prospective cohort study of the public health care system in Sweden, showing an increased risk of NMSC in abatacept users compared with TNFα inhibitors. As these results warrant replication, the present study will assess whether abatacept is associated with an increased risk of reporting overall cancer and specific cancer, including breast, lung, lymphoma, cervical, melanoma and NMSC, compared to other bDMARDs.

Despite biologic drugs and improvements of inflammatory arthritis (IA) treatment, many patients with inflammatory arthritis still face increased absenteeism, reduced at-work productivity and report difficulties working and having to give up their jobs. Such professional limitation generates psychological stress and it felt generally as a premature social ageing. "Making-it-Work" is an intervention developed in English speaking Canada, which aims at enabling both patients and employers to intervene early during the course of inflammatory arthritis to reduce possible problems at work, and to prevent sick leave and future work disability in the long term and improve well-being at work. As part of the EVADE (Evaluation of the effectiVeness of an ADaptation of the Making it-Work intervention in a French Environment) project which aims at evaluating the effectiveness of an adaptation of the "Making-it-Work" intervention, to the French environment, the investigators propose : to identify the problems faced at work due to IA, patients needs, motivations to continue working and strategies helpful for maintaining employment. to develop a questionnaire to assess difficulties at work, needs for adaptations and support and motivations to work of patients with inflammatory arthritis.

Lactate levels are rapidly available and may potentially aid in diagnosing septic arthritis in a native joint. This study will determine the utility of synovial lactate in discriminating septic from aseptic arthritis.

Rheumatoid Arthritis is a chronic debilitating inflammatory autoimmune disease of unknown etiology .

The aim of this study is to investigate the safety and effectiveness of tocilizumab (Actemra®) using Chinese Rheumatology Information Platform (CRIP) on Chinese Rheumatology Data Centre (CRDC, http://www.crdc.org.cn/) in Chinese RA patients.

This study aims to analyses time to disease relapse of RA patients if TNF-α inhibitors are being tapered, the predictive factors that are associated with successful taper of TNF-α inhibitors. Also, investigate the effects associated with dose tapering of TNF-α inhibitors.