This article is to explore the curative effect of treating ankylosing spondylitis (AS) through combining etanercept, thalidomide and sulfasalazine. Sixty-two patients with AS were divided into 3 groups: experimental group Ais treated by etanercept+ thalidomide + sulfasalazine for 1 year (n=22); control group B was treated with etanercept; control group C was treated with thalidomide + sulfasala...

Background/Aims In inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), repeated bouts of remission and relapse occur in patients and can impose a risk of colitis-associated cancer. We hypothesized that plant extracts of Atractylodes macrocephala (AM) or Taraxacum herba (TH) may be better than sulfasalazine for treating this disease because these extracts can promote additional regeneration. Methods Murine inte...

INTRODUCTION Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a chronic systemic disease of the connective tissue that leads to progressive joint destruction, disability, withdrawal from occupational activity, and premature death. OBJECTIVES The aim of the paper was to evaluate the efficacy and safety of leflunomide compared with placebo, methotrexate, and sulfasalazine in monotherapy of RA. PATIENTS AND METHO...

BACKGROUND Spontaneous reporting systems for adverse drug reactions (ADRs) are handicapped by under-reporting and limited detail on individual cases. We report an investigation from a local surveillance for serious adverse drug reactions associated with disease modifying anti-rheumatic drugs that was triggered by the occurrence of liver failure in two of our patients. METHODS Serious ADR repo...

Pancreatic cancer is an aggressive, drug-resistant disease; its first-line chemotherapeutic, gemcitabine, is only marginally effective. Intracellular depletion of glutathione, a major free-radical scavenger, has been associated with growth arrest and reduced drug resistance (chemosensitization) of cancer cells. In search of a new therapeutic approach for pancreatic cancer, we sought to determin...

Case report A 25 year old Asian woman with a 11 year history of juvenile idiopathic arthritis (polyarthritis, rheumatoid factor positive) was referred from a peripheral hospital with poor disease control despite multiple disease modifying anti-rheumatic drugs (DMARDS). She was not a cigarette smoker and had been taking azathioprine 125 mg daily and prednisolone 5 mg daily for the past 10 months...