Description
Guidelines for the classification of rheumatoid arthritis have been released, the product of a collaboration between the American College of Rheumatology (ACR) and the European League Against Rheumatism. It is the first time they have been updated in over two decades. The assessment of rheumatoid disease has changed significantly in recent years. We now have an improved understanding of the pathogenesis of rheumatoid arthritis and new drugs with which to treat disease early and aggressively. The objectives of treatment have now changed from managing debilitating persistent symptoms to the prevention of serious joint damage in the first instance.The attention of clinical researchers has therefore shifted towards the early stages of disease, as less specific markers of late-stage disease (e.g. prolonged morning stiffness) have been replaced with new blood tests for biomarkers such as antibodies to citrullinated protein antigen. These biomarkers can predate the clinical manifestations of disease by many years.
The former classification criteria have become less relevant over time; they became an impediment to clinical research into novel agents because many patients did not qualify for clinical trials until thei disease was well established.
The guidelines have been developed to facilitate clinical trials of new disease-modifying agents that may allow more patients to achieve remission. Currently, various diagnostic algorithms based on these new guidelines are being developed and are due to be tested for clinical use in the near future.
These new guidelines should pave the way for the development of more drugs that will allow more people to escape the burden of this disability.
Target Audience
This seminar is appropriate for all disciplines involved in the clinical development process: exploratory development, clinical groups, biometrics, regulatory, safety and strategic commercial functions. Attendees with some prior knowledge of the disease area will benefit from this webinar but an in depth knowledge of current assessment methods is not required.
The Expert
Professor Peter C. Taylor MA, BM, BCh, PhD, FRCP
Norman Collisson Professor of Musculoskeletal Sciences, University of Oxford
Peter C. Taylor was appointed to the Norman Collison chair of musculoskeletal sciences at the University of Oxford from 1st October 2011. His clinical and research work in Oxford will be based within the Nuffield Department of Orthopaedics, Rheumatology and Musculoskeletal Sciences (NDORMs) and also at the new Kennedy Institute of Rheumatology laboratories in Oxford, due to be completed in 2013. He leads the clinical trials research based in the Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre.
He was formerly Professor of Experimental Rheumatology at the Kennedy Institute of Rheumatology Division, Imperial College, London, an honorary consultant rheumatologist working in Imperial College NHS Healthcare Trust and lead clinician for rheumatology. He was also head of the clinical trials group at the Kennedy Institute Division, and Dean of the Charing Cross campus. He studied pre-clinical medical sciences at Gonville and Caius College at the University of Cambridge and his first degree was in Physiology. He subsequently studied clinical medicine at the University of Oxford and was awarded a PhD degree from the University of London for studies on pathogenesis of arthritis.
Professor Taylor has specialist clinical interests in rheumatoid arthritis and early inflammatory arthritis. His research interests are in the use of novel imaging for evaluation of prognosis, the assessment of responses to therapy and as an early indicator of inflammation suppression as well as disease modification particularly as applied to early phase clinical trial design. He has recently pioneered studies using such measures as primary outcome measures in early phase Ib/IIa studies with a view to informing later phase study design. He has been a principal investigator in numerous international clinical trials of biologic therapies including the earliest seminal trails of anti-TNF and anti-IL-6 receptor therapy. He has also led many studies employing anti-cytokine therapy as probes of pathogenesis. Professor Taylor is Chief investigator for several new generation biologic therapies targeting cytokines and CD20 in current development as well as new “small molecule” oral agents for rheumatoid arthritis. He was awarded a “Healthcare Champions Prize” in the Houses of Parliament in May 2008.
