CLUSTER Co-investigators have co-authored a viewpoint article published in the Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases. This article looks back at the remarkable progress made in the last two decades, with a rapid rise in the number of available medications to treat immune mediated inflammatory diseases (IMID), and towards a future of ‘precision medicine’.
In childhood arthritis, also known as Juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA), many new types of medicines, called ‘biologics’, have become available in recent years. However, despite this, many children and young people continue to suffer with their arthritis for many years. More than half of young people with JIA need treatments into adult life and often must try many different types of medication in that time, essentially a trial-and-error approach. The current method of grouping children with JIA, known as the ILAR classification, is based largely on a child’s signs or symptoms in the clinic, for example how many joints are affected, does not help the clinical team decide which type of treatment will benefit that individual.
In this review, entitled ‘Towards molecular-pathology informed clinical trials in childhood arthritis to achieve precision medicine in juvenile idiopathic arthritis’, the authors look at how new approaches to research, including using ‘biomarkers’, are paving the way towards ‘precision medicine’. This ultimately means getting the right treatment to the right patient at the right time.
Read the full article here: https://ard.bmj.com/content/early/2022/12/05/ard-2022-222553
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