Sidiropoulos Prodromos, Sfikakis Petros P, Boumpas Dimitrios D, Vassilopoulos Dimitrios
Department of Rheumatology and Clinical Immunology, School of Medicine, University of Crete, Greece.
Laboratory of Rheumatology, Inflammation and Autoimmunity, Institute of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology, Foundation for Research and Technology, Heraklion, Greece.
Mediterr J Rheumatol. 2019 Sep 30;30(3):141-146. doi: 10.31138/mjr.30.3.141. eCollection 2019 Sep.
Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a chronic autoimmune disease associated with substantial morbidity and mortality especially in difficult to treat cases. Biologic agents were introduced 20 years ago in Greece and RA management has paralleled the European experience. Several publications from the country have captured important aspects of the disease from its epidemiology to the clinical use of biologics and management of comorbidities. In this communication we review the management of RA and its evolution over the last 20 years in Greece, discussing the major achievements and the unmet needs of the disease in an effort to put this into a perspective. We conclude that introduction of biologic therapy has substantially changed the treatment of difficult to treat rheumatoid arthritis in-spite of the multiple unmet needs. While striving for even better outcomes, we cannot lose sight of the major impact of biologic therapies on the lives of patients with rheumatoid arthritis.
类风湿关节炎（RA）是一种慢性自身免疫性疾病，尤其是在难治性病例中，会导致较高的发病率和死亡率。生物制剂于20年前在希腊引入，RA的管理与欧洲的经验同步。该国的几篇出版物涵盖了该疾病从流行病学到生物制剂的临床应用以及合并症管理等重要方面。在本交流中，我们回顾了希腊过去20年中RA的管理及其演变，讨论了该疾病的主要成就和未满足的需求，以期对其有更全面的认识。我们得出结论，尽管存在多种未满足的需求，但生物治疗的引入已极大地改变了难治性类风湿关节炎的治疗。在努力追求更好的治疗效果时，我们不能忽视生物治疗对类风湿关节炎患者生活的重大影响。
