How Important Is Early Diagnosis When It Comes To Rheumatoid Arthritis?

— -- Question: How important is early diagnosis when it comes to rheumatoid arthritis?

Answer: Early diagnosis of rheumatoid arthritis is critical. For many years, we looked at treating this disease depending on how severe it was in individual patients. We know that this is a chronic disease, and many people begin to get joint damage over time. And we often tailored therapy to the severity of that joint damage.

That has changed quite a bit in the last ten years or so. We've come to recognize that the vast majority of patients with rheumatoid arthritis -- perhaps 90 percent or more -- will begin to get damage to their joints within the first year or two of disease. And once that damage happens, it can't be reversed.

And so now, the goal in treating rheumatoid arthritis is to initiate therapy early before the damage has happened so that we can prevent long term structural damage and long term problems with disability. So early treatment and aggressive treatment is really the watchword at this point -- getting the disease before it does its damage and not waiting 'til after the fact.

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