title: The changing use of disease-modifying anti-rheumatic drugs in individuals with rheumatoid arthritis from the United Kingdom General Practice Research Database.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To describe the use of disease-modifying anti-rheumatic drugs (DMARDs) in the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and changing trends in their use.
  
  
  METHODS
  We used the General Practice Research Database (GPRD) to describe DMARD use by patients with RA identified using ICD-9 codes. The GPRD is a UK national database containing records of more than 7 million individuals from 683 general practices. Subjects were studied between 1987 and 2002. The prevalence and duration of individual DMARD use and changing trends in DMARD use were investigated.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Thirty-four thousand three hundred and sixty-four patients with RA were identified. Only 17,115 (50%) individuals were prescribed at least one DMARD during the study period. The most commonly prescribed DMARD over the study period was sulphasalazine (46.3%) and then methotrexate (31.4%). Use of methotrexate has increased 17-fold (1.8% of all DMARD prescriptions in 1988 to 30% in 2002) whereas use of gold has fallen (13.2% to 2.3%). Analysis of DMARD persistence using Kaplan-Meier survival curves showed the methotrexate use persisted significantly longer than other DMARDs with an estimated median of 8.1 yr. Prednisolone was used in up to 50% of RA patients in any one year and has remained fairly constant throughout the study period.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Large numbers of individuals with a clinical diagnosis of RA identified from a large primary care database are not receiving DMARDs. This work suggests that many individuals with RA have not been treated appropriately and this may have major long-term consequences on joint damage and general health.
authors: MRC Epidemiology Resource Centre, University of Southampton, Southampton General Hospital, Southampton SO16 6YD, UK. cedwards@soton.ac.uk
authors: C J
authors: CJ
authors: Edwards
authors: N K
authors: NK
authors: Arden
authors: D
authors: D
authors: Fisher
authors: J C
authors: JC
authors: Saperia
authors: I
authors: I
authors: Reading
authors: T P
authors: TP
authors: Van Staa
authors: C
authors: C
authors: Cooper
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D018501:Antirheumatic Agents / Q000627:therapeutic use*; D001172:Arthritis, Rheumatoid / Q000188:drug therapy* / Q000453:epidemiology; D016208:Databases, Factual; D004363:Drug Utilization / Q000706:statistics & numerical data / Q000639:trends; D005194:Family Practice / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008727:Methotrexate / Q000627:therapeutic use; D008875:Middle Aged; D012460:Sulfasalazine / Q000627:therapeutic use; D016019:Survival Analysis; D006113:United Kingdom / Q000453:epidemiology
chemical_list: D018501:Antirheumatic Agents; D012460:Sulfasalazine; D008727:Methotrexate