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Does early sulfasalazine treatment provide long-term benefits to patients with juvenile idiopathic arthritis?

Nature Clinical Practice Rheumatology volume 4, pages 344–345 (2008)Cite this article

Abstract

The small, well-designed, observational study by van Rossum et al. raises and addresses questions of great significance for the treatment of children with JIA. The original RCT demonstrated significant benefits of sulfasalazine over placebo that, by today's standards, would be considered only moderate clinical improvement. Despite these initial modest effects, the sulfasalazine group demonstrated improved outcomes compared with the placebo group 9 years later.

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Acknowledgements

The synopsis was written by Bryony Mearns, Associate Editor, Nature Clinical Practice.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. TV Ting is a 2nd year Pediatric Rheumatology Fellow and DJ Lovell holds the Joseph E Levinson Chair in Pediatric Rheumatology and is the Associate Director of the Division of Rheumatology at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center in Cincinnati, OH, USA.,

    Tracy V Ting & Daniel J Lovell

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  1. Tracy V Ting
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  2. Daniel J Lovell
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Correspondence to Daniel J Lovell.

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Competing interests

TV Ting declared no competing interests.

DJ Lovell has declared the following associations:

Editorial Boards: Clinical and Experimental Rheumatology, Editorial Board; Arthritis Care and Research, Associate Editor

Centocor, Inc.: Member of Juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis Study Advisory Committee, participant in clinical trial, consultant for study trial design and performance

Wyeth Pharmaceuticals: Speaker's Bureau

Amgen: Consultant, Principal Investigator: Immunex registry study for a clinical site for which I receive 5% salary support to participate in the work of the overall study Coordinating Center, funds go to institution; and Chairperson for DSMC of Pediatric Psoriasis Efficacy Trial and Extension Study

Bristol-Myers Squibb: Was the overall study PI on an international multicenter phase 3 study in JRA, study completed in 2006, manuscript in press. Funding went to CCHMC

Abbott: Consultant in designing and overall study PI for multicenter trial of Humira in JRA. Funds go to CCHMC

Pfizer: Consultant in JIA trial analysis and development of materials for FDA Advisory Committee meeting for Celebrex in JIA

Regeneron: Consultant in discussing development of trial for subjects with JRA. Overall study PI of a multicenter clinical trial. Funding goes to CCHMC

Hoffmann-La Roche Inc.: Consultant in discussing development of trial for subjects with JRA until 11/05 and then contract for Coordinating Center for overall study with funding going to CCHMC

Novartis, Inc.: Consultant in discussing development of trial for subjects with JRA

Xoma, Inc.: Consultant in discussing development of trial for subjects with JRA

Roche Pharmaceuticals: Grant to my institution for support in developing protocol and logistics of phase 3 trial and to support our function as coordinating center for the study

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Ting, T., Lovell, D. Does early sulfasalazine treatment provide long-term benefits to patients with juvenile idiopathic arthritis?. Nat Rev Rheumatol 4, 344–345 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1038/ncprheum0819

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