[Follow-up study of patients with rheumatoid arthritis over a period of more than 10 years (1966-1978): analysis of disease progression and treatment in 100 cases (author's transl)].

A follow-up study was conducted in 100 rheumatoid arthritis patients, treated over the last 10 years with currently accepted therapy, after a period varying from 10 to 15 years following the onset of the disease: 20 p. cent were in Steinbrocker's stage I, 60 p. cent in stage II, 16 p. cent in stage III, and 4 p. cent in stage IV. When compared with a similar study conducted between 1948 and 1958, results demonstrated that the percentage of patients in stage I had not varied, but that only half as many patients were disabled (stages III and IV), due to insertion of lower limb surgical prostheses. Corticoid therapy had been necessary in 84 p. cent of the patients for variable periods. The 50 p. cent duration of the different treatments proposed during this 10-year period was 12 months for antimalarial drugs, 8 months for gold salts, and 12 months for D-penicillamine. Therapy was still effective after one year in 30 p. cent on antimalarial drugs, 27 p. cent on gold salts, 51 p. cent on D-penicillamine, and 21 p. cent on chlorambucil. Duration of efficacy of basic treatments is too short to cover the long progression of rheumatoid arthritis. New treatments are necessary, as the functional prognosis of this disease has not changed fundamentally over the last 15 years.