Rheumatoid arthritis fatigue can be improved with successful treatment

Successful treatment of rheumatoid arthritis can help reduce the chronic fatigue often associated with the condition, says research in Clinical and Experimental Rheumatology.

It is often assumed that the fatigue of rheumatoid arthritis is down to the symptoms, and not due to the actual mechanisms of the disease.

So a team from France decided to look at the factors that affect fatigue and evaluate its levels over the first four months of tocilizumab treatment in 719 people with rheumatoid arthritis.

The volunteers were treated with five infusions of intravenous tocilizumab over a four-month period. Fatigue, depression, anxiety and disease activity were assessed.

At the start of the study fatigue levels were high; 73% of the volunteers had unacceptable levels of fatigue. But at four months, 62% had improvement in fatigue levels, and reductions were often seen as early as after two weeks.

Before and after tocilizumab treatment, fatigue was mainly related to functional status, levels of depression and anxiety.

“In these long-standing rheumatoid arthritis patients, fatigue levels were high and mainly explained by health assessment questionnaire and psychological distress, but improved with treatment indicating a link with disease activity,” the researchers say. “The pathophysiological basis of rheumatoid arthritis fatigue should be further explored.”

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Image credit: Ray Ashley