Masakazu Nakamura

Present Status of Patients with RA at Sasebo General Hospital

We have treated rheumatoid arthritis (RA) at an expert outpatient department since July 1986. Now we report present status of 64 patients attending this department and discuss the role of orthopedists in treating patients with RA. One of the most crucial problemsin the treatment for RA may be that true etiology of this disease remains obscure in spite of the amount of studies up to date and then patients recieve only symptomatic treatment throughout.We considered that orthopedists who treat RA should carefully attend to the changes of degree and stage of illness, select more reasonable treatments for individuals and evaluate therapeutic response. From these reasons, the number of patients consistently treated by an orthopedist seem to be limited to less than 50.